


Silver Lining

by Sanhaim



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Fluff, Kidfic, M/M, Mpreg, Natasha/Matt are a background pairing, and will mostly be referenced not shown, bigotted assholes, graphic birth, not AOU compliant, recovery fic, the Winter Soldier does not appear until later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 28,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2018628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanhaim/pseuds/Sanhaim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton was fairly simple at heart. Average really, if you take out the part where he's a spy and assassin. He likes his job, loves his work environment, when somebody isn't trying to kill him.<br/>He's fairly good at dealing with what life throws his way. Sometimes it's harder to deal with than others. But sometimes the hardest things in his life can lead to what he treasures most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to Nie, who reluctantly acted as a beta for me.

Hormones and Pheromones, it's something that people get mixed up all the time, most not realizing the subtle but important difference between the two of them. Besides it wasn't as though they weren't linked. You create hormones, that put out pheromones, that created hormones in somebody else.  
When you're an omega you know all about the hormones that affect yourself, because, unless you're on birth control, you're going to get affected by them every six months.  
If you're an alpha you know all about Pheromones, because an unbonded compatible omega in heat will fill them with a need to breed. You might not call it by the right name, but you knew about them. Too many alphas didn't care about things like rape, whether or not they were being affected by pheromones, and never bothered to control themselves. Most omegas knew not to go into heat around alphas they couldn't trust 100% for that reason. 

Most omegas weren't Clint Barton, assigned to a team to protect a scientist, when the threat came. The team died to protect him, Clint held no illusions about his own life expectancy, even as he was thrown through the lab room. He had learned from the best, but close quarters combat was never going to be his strength. He'd no choice this time though. Ignoring the pain of glass, from the broken cabinet filled with vials of various drugs cutting through wherever skin was exposed, or the slight burning sensation as the broken vials poured their contents onto skin and bleeding wounds. 

He can't fight the winter soldier, it's a fool's choice that will end in not only his death but also the death of the man he's supposed to protect. Clint isn't about to allow the deaths of his fellow agents, his friends be for nothing. Instead he takes the opportunity, of being thrown closer to the door, the man probably not expecting him to get up after the blow to pull one of his arrows and shoot, trusting the feel of the notch to tell him that he had the right now and that it had armed itself. Aimed for the head less than a foot away the soldier had no choice to catch, with that weird metal hand of his. Which caused the arrow to send all 500,000 volts coursing through his body. Not enough to kill him, unfortunately, but enough to stop him as Clint, with no way to finish the job on him, moved to catch up with his fleeing protectee. 

It takes time, but time was what Clint had, seconds, then minutes ticked by as the omega pushed the beta through the now empty halls, towards the promise of safety given in the roof and the helicopter there, it's a medical one, unarmed and unarmored, but they both know how to fly it and that's all Clint needs. Ignoring the hormones that were beginning to rush through his body, and not noticing the pheromones that he began to put out.  
By the time he noticed he was already in heat and only getting worse. Every omega knows something else, forced heats, those created by drugs that interfere with birth control, like the ones that he's covered in, leeching into his bloodstream through sluggishly bleeding cuts still embedded with glass, are deadly. They burn quickly, but leave nothing behind for things like the signals a body needs to continue to function. 

Clint knows that, and he knows that the man coming after them will reach them, and go through him, long before they reach the roof and safety. While he couldn't scent, at first, the secondary gender of the man after them, he knows now. Because only a compatible alpha would make his mouth water like it's doing right now.  
Because he's nothing if not practical, using what he has to his advantage, the decision to try and use his heat takes very little time. It's not a difficult decision to make, it's easy, it solves a lot of problems, though adds another set that he can easily deal with, and it's his best choice, perhaps not for himself to live, but for the man he's been assigned to guard, well that's something else. Clint's a practical man, he knows when to pick his battles, and to move the goalposts. 

It's a plan that hinges on the guy being the sort of alpha who doesn't have the self-control necessary to not be distracted by an omega in heat. He pushes the beta through the door, into the hallway that leads into the small roof, the man knows as well as Clint does what is going on, his eyes flicking towards the shards of glass still embedded in Clint's skin, the sweat that pouring out of him and the glaze of need that Clint is fighting through. He may not be aware that the man is an alpha due to the scent blockers the assassin is wearing, but he knows as well as Clint that very soon his last remaining guard was going to be useless. 

Shutting the door behind him, he has only a second or two to turn around and lean against the door, fighting to keep his facilities. If the guy actually didn't stop then Clint would simply stall as long as possible until he was sure the scientist was out of range of even anti-aircraft weapons. The last thing he remembers is the metal of the alpha's arm as he walks into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

When Clint wakes up again, two days have passed, and he is stunned by the fact that he's not just alive but awake at first. If the heat hadn't killed him he had been sure the winter soldier would have. His first thought is Jesus Christ I faced the Winter Soldier and lived; had even accomplished his assignment, if the short note in Nat's handwriting was to be believed. His second was what had tried to remember what had happened after things started to go fuzzy in his memory, the few details that he could remember made him shy away from the rest of the hazy images his mind produced. 

It was a sign of just how compromised he was that he had completely forgotten one fundamental thing, though perhaps it was more dismissed as unimportant. That heats, even forced heats, happened only when you were fertile, they end when you're no longer fertile. It's the reason he survived, not just escaping the lethal effects of the heat itself but an execution from the winter soldier who had most likely thought that it was burning out his system. 

It's not the first time that this sort of thing happened, though it's fairly rare, won't be the last time either. There's protocol for it, therapy is mandatory as well as leave from the field, but for the kid they inform the omega of their choices and let the omega decide. SHIELD didn't judge on any decision you made, if anything the agency reacted swiftly and vindictively if any of it's agents harassed another if they chose to get an abortion, or not. One of the perks of working for a government agency built from the ground up by a female omega, Director Carter's policies continued and expanded on after she stepped down by Fury. 

He listened to the doctors, explain the options, too gently for Clint's liking, he wasn't damaged, sure as hell wasn't broken and didn't need to be treated with kid's gloves. One was completely out of the picture, Clint had been in the foster system, he would never subject a kid to that, even the better places weren't a good choice. The thing is, he never wanted a kid, _never_. Didn't particularly like them, had made an agreement with himself to never have one. But as the doctor walks out and Natasha walks in, sitting next to him in the bed, the comforting scent of the family alpha that she is, he places a hand to his stomach and admits to himself that he can't. That for better or worse this is his baby, and he can't abort it, any more than he could give it up for adoption. 

When he opens his eyes again it's to the sight of Natasha, still there, her eyes warm with understanding.  
"You realize, of course, that I am not changing diapers, and she will be learning Russian."  
The short laugh he lets out is filled with relief, that at the very least he's not going to be alone in this. Fury and Phil both establish that they were going to both be there also, and thank god, while he's taken off the field, at least they don't expect him to stand around filling out paperwork. No, they immediately put him into training, both for himself and training baby agents down at the range, though the second was only until the baby inside of him developed the ability to hear.

So instead of being bored, mindless, he found himself with his days full, at either the pad where he was learning where he was learning the newest of the inventions, testing out R&D's latest in arrows or teaching the newbies how to shoot straight or in one of his therapy sessions, an hour a day, three times a week. Outside of work, when he wasn't sleeping, he was going to start looking for a new apartment, easier since a lot of the time he couldn't sleep. The one he was living in was cheap, easy to keep clean, easily defended and close to SHIELD HQ. He kept it clean, but that didn't cover up the problems with the place, the water stains, peeling paint, the fact that everything, the floors, the walls, the ceiling, all of the appliances- other than the coffee maker- needed to be replaced.

It hadn't mattered before, before he was only there for a few hours a day every few weeks. It would matter now, this place was a death trap for a kid. If he could take one thing from here, it would be his neighbors. The people who lived in his building and on his block. The relief he felt, when instead of knowing that he'd be able to deal with the harassment that omegas had to go through on a daily basis, he knew that he wouldn't have to deal with it in the first place had been tangible, and overwhelming. He'd trade the best apartment in the city for that kind of peace of mind, if it was just himself. Natasha had only nodded when he asked her to come with him to look for a new place, a small smirk on her face that suggested that if he hadn't, she would have shown up anyways. There's other things to do, but it's not like he doesn't have time to prepare, and it's so much easier, knowing that the people that he considers family- closer to him than any members of his actual family- weren't going to suddenly abandon him.


	3. Chapter 3

Finding an apartment takes a lot more time than he had thought it would. He had needed to go through two realtors before finding one that wouldn't look him over and sniff him, their manner subtly changing towards condescending and it takes all that's in him not to pull out the gun he keeps hidden and shooting them in a blind fury. He knows, from the way that Tasha twitches next to him that it's even harder for her.

The third is a bit standoffish, not as friendly as the first two had been before they found out that he was an unbonded, pregnant omega. He had also looked Clint up and down, sniffed, then asked Clint what he was looking for in an apartment. The first place is completely unacceptable, it's got a view, from all sides, but no real sightlines, it makes him a sitting duck in his apartment. He blames the kitchen, small and cramped with out of date appliances, it would have been a problem all on it's own. Clint likes to cook, and spends most of his time in after missions but before pick up in different countries trying, and normally succeeding, in getting favorite recipes out of the locals. He's a stress cook and baker, he has no problems admitting this, neither do his coworkers who have been reaping the benefits. It's a habit that is probably the reason that most of them have started to hit the gym more often lately.  
The second place has sightlines and a kitchen, but he has to go with Fury because Tasha is on a solo mission, with Phil coordinating. It's perfect, except for the fact that two of the alphas that live in the building are standing there, and despite Fury, make no qualms about letting Clint know about what exactly they're going to do, next time Clint goes into heat. They quiet when Fury focuses his eye on them, standing next to Clint, very noticeably not looking at the hand that Clint had tightened around one of the knives hidden in his jacket.

The third place, the third place had been the best yet, and Clint hadn't been able to make it past the living room without panicking. Fury had to drag him out into the hallways, as he tried to force himself to breath again, his body shaking despite himself. The realtor nods his agreement at something Fury said to him, Clint still too out of it to hear before Fury drags him away. It's only when they're alone in the car with his boss at the wheel that he stops shaking, crossing his arms around the seat belt that he put on him. Relief tinting everything at the feeling of safety, because Fury's vehicles are the safest things outside of the newly built helicarrier or the bus. He doesn't even mind that he has to spend the next hour with his therapist, because if there is one thing he's not going to let this do, it's rule his life.

The next day is when the morning sickness starts. Morning sickness, despite all of the warnings Clint had gotten about just how bad it was going to be, is a thousand times worse than he's expecting. He's sure he's not throwing up his dinner, he's throwing up his entire digestive system, Clint is sure that at some point he's thrown up his _soul_ , and it's now floating around in the toilet.  
It's the first time since he had been pregnant that he really regrets being pregnant, not because he's carrying a baby, but because he's going to spend the rest of his life, hunched over a toilet hurling up everything he had eaten in his entire life.

Coulson is the one that finds him, because he had been late. He found Clint there in his tiny bathroom hunched over his toilet, much where the agent had expected to find him. He waited until Clint had finished and flushed before handing him the bottle of ginger ale that he had flattened on the way to the tiny apartment. He flashed the beta a weak smile, taking a sip of the flat ale, relief flooding through him as it causes his stomach begin to settle a little bit.

When he emerges from the bathroom he's in his casual uniform, holding the bottle and arching a questioning eyebrow at Coulson who just shrugged as though to say that he had no commentary. Nor did he say anything as Clint finished getting ready, other than suggesting that he bring his toothbrush and paste.  
It's a very long day for Clint, interrupted for most of it with random trips to the bathroom, or when there's none nearby the closest trashcan. He gets a great piece of advice from agent Chaplain though, as he works with her re-certification with long ranged rifles. An omega agent who's oldest of 6 kids was just entering college, she gave him a piece of peppermint candy, the sort restaurants give after you've eaten, as he moved the trash can closer to him, starting to feel his stomach roll again. With the advice to keep them close because the peppermint will do wonders to help keep the nausea down.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to the members of the sterek Chatroom for answering pestering questions about what to when pregnant. 
> 
> A lot of stuff about Clint's pregnancy and later the birth, comes from my sister, who had three kids. Even if I didn't badger her, because I decided not to evoke the natural question and have to answer it with 'oh yeah, I knocked up a male super-hero for shits and giggles.'

Clint was just past his second month when the cravings started to hit, there was all of the normal things, like drinking pickle juice from the jar and an unending desire for chocolate. His other cravings were less conventional a reflection of the fact that he spent half of the year in countries without easy access to beef or chicken, or the Dutch in general.

The SHIELD cafeterias, while stocked with any number of foods that accommodated that it's agents came from all over the world, couldn't accommodate Clint's cravings. Though, thankfully living in New York meant that he could find access to anything, if he looked in the right places. The right places being the grocery store, or a cheerful looking store who's address he had been given by one of his friends outside of SHIELD.

He was fairly sure he had grossed out more than one of the baby agents with his normal choice of foods, a scrapple and okra sandwich with a strawberry banana smoothie,chewing happily in the cafeteria along with some of the fruit served there. He knows that he had made his realtor turn green though, as he bit into the grasshopper and honey disk. Natasha, standing next to him rolled her eyes and held out a hand, taking a bite then raising an eyebrow.  
“This is Thailand style right?”  
“Mhm, Danny had found it, sold in that one place on Spring street as it turned out.”  
“The Evolution store right?” She asked before finishing off her disk and Clint pulled out a second one as the realtor turned his back to them to continue the tour of the latest of apartments, it had been the one that fit all of his needs, most of his wants, with the downside that it was the most expensive because it took up the entire top floor of the building with a balcony that curved over the corner of two sides of it, large enough to easily fit a small breakfast table. It was still within his budget, even if the doorman hadn't thought so. 

Clint frowned as he inspected the hip height wall that wrapped around the edge of the balcony, topped with a bar railing that reached his waist. He itched to get his bow and see how well he could shoot from his position. Plus with the fire escape connected on the side of the right corner it meant that he had a clear shot to anybody who happened to be loitering around on the street next to his building or the alley behind it. He glanced at Natasha, arching his eyebrows slightly, to her amused smile, nobody around his current place tried anything around it anymore, due to the fact that Clint could accurately throw a bucket of ice cold water to hit somebody's head even from a distance of several feet. It would be fun to start all over again with fresh victims.

It wasn't until a week later, when he went there by himself, with his three self appointed protectors either on a mission or out of the country on director business that he found the one problem he had been anticipating with the building. The idiots that stood on the corners harassing omegas, ignored by Clint as he entered the building, to finish the arrangements for him to move in. He would have continued to ignore them had one of the idiots not reached out to smack his ass as he walked back to where his car was parked. He hadn't even realized that he had moved until he heard the snap and felt bones breaking under his hand. His other hand wrapping itself around his gun, released only after he felt his finger going under the trigger guard. He jerked his hand away, forcing the alpha to the ground in what could have been thought of as a natural movement. If he had started with that hand near his jacket.

He's grateful, when the cops pull him off the idiot alpha, handcuffing him as they waited for the ambulance to cart off the harasser with the broken hand. Because he almost shot some stupid little shit and that scares him, scares him enough that he's grateful that he's off field assignments for the time being. He's still in trouble with the cops though, more so when they find out that he picked the handcuffs while sitting there, making a call to Coulson as he showed them that he does in fact have the ability to carry a concealed weapon in the state of New York. He can't exactly tell them that he's a secret agent and government assassin and that the stupid little shit nearly got his head blown off. By the time the ambulance gets there things are different, since they're taking his statement and the dumb shit head is stunned for suddenly facing attempted assault charges.

The idiot will get to stew in jail with a broken and the realization that he's facing serious jail time (probably won't get it though. Neither Coulson or Clint are particularly vindictive, even if Clint would like to set the whole lot of them on fire most of the time) Clint gets to look forward to a whole new set of therapy sessions focusing on his reactions, since he had dealt with that type of the pain in the ass before, but never almost pulled a gun on them.

When he moves into his new apartment, there's nobody on the street in front of the building, or across from it. He's not carrying a gun in a place that he can reach on instinct though Natasha is. The movers are a company that is used by gun store owners and SHIELD (though they don't know it) all the time, so they don't blink an eye at the gun lockers, or the cases with Clint's bows. Or the knives. They do however, look very grateful for the elevator that leads to his apartment. He shuts his eyes for a second, remembering that this decision is what is best for his daughter. That she can't sleep under a roof that might have mold and walls that are just as likely to fall in as not.

Then he reminds himself that he doesn't in fact know the gender of Nickie. Despite what Natasha says, although she's normally freakishly right about most things, even or perhaps especially when she's guessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple in case anybody was wondering what scrapple was.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint learns something, just over a month after he moved into his new apartment, which is that if you don’t feel like you have the energy or the will to decorate it Natasha gets angry. Angrier still as she walks around the large space and takes in the pale peach that adorns all of the walls and the ratty furniture that looked like it was falling apart when he got it years ago. The only thing that gets the Natasha Romanova seal of approval is the baby’s room, which is the only room that he’s had work done in. Because he had asked the artist that had used to live two floors below him, he already owns two of her paintings, currently leaning against a wall waiting to be put up.

The baby’s room is a very pale golden color with a painting of a tree on one wall, it looks like it’s growing out of the dark chocolate wood of the crib that he had bought, with lavender birds roosting in it’s leaves and flocking around it. 

Clint can tell that she thinks it looks bare, because at the moment there’s only the crib, dresser and changing table set. Pretty much the only thing he’s gotten so far, bought online from his personal computer while he was at HQ on his lunch break. Chosen because it was hand carved, looked nice and would convert into a bed that lasted until they were a preteen.

She doesn’t say anything though, because he has only been there a month, and most of that time has been spent at HQ, paper pushing, learning, or training new agents things like ‘aim for the head not the chest’. Plus he's exhausted, falling asleep at random times.

Besides, she may not recognize it right now but they both know three things, that Clint is not the weekend warrior type. He’d be shot by Nat and Phil if he tried to do something like painting or putting up new tile in his bathroom while pregnant, and that and that he’d be shot twice if he went to Ikea. He just gotta give her time before she comes to that realization, it'll lessen the lecture he'll get later on about taking pride in his home.

Right now though she's swearing in Russian at him, about how she may not be able to hit him for his stupidity but she can still make him suffer for it. Clint doesn't doubt her at all, if anything he's a little afraid now, since Natasha getting creative is never good for her victims.

They don't, to his surprise, go to a paint or furniture store immediately, no they go to a restaurant, a barbecue place that Clint found during his first year at the city and go to as often as his budget and/or mission schedule allows. He has a sinking feeling in his stomach that he knows why they are there and not going to a paint store, it’s because she is waiting on somebody. Most likely the same somebody she was texting on the phone with while taking pictures of his apartment.

She watches him, as he orders his drink, another smoothie, pretty much the only thing there that he was allowed to drink. Tash rolls her eyes at him but then orders one of the microbrews the place carries before turning to him considering.

"You remembered to make another appointment for your ultrasound right?" Clint nodded, his original one had been three weeks ago, but the day before they had called to cancel, due to maintenance. He would have suspected insurance fraud but it would have been cheaper for them to just replace the broken machines.

"For next Tuesday at noon."

"Do you want one of us to come with you?" Clint considered the question, paired with the way he had reacted, when just walking into an apartment had caused him to panic. This was a lot closer to that then a furnished living room had been. It didn't take long for him to nod, he needed them there, not just for his peace of mind but also to keep him from attacking somebody while he panicked.

The waitress returns as their conversation moves to shows that he was planning to catch up on while out of the field. As well Phil Coulson arrived, in a suit that Clint knew he had put on in his office because he hadn’t been able to leave. The waitress disappears, as he comes over, reappearing just before Phil sits down with a menu and taking his drink order.

Nat doesn't waste time talking about small things, immediately filling Phil in on the state of his apartment complete with the pictures she had taken on her phone. Phil gives them both a look translated into both 'are you kidding me?' And the question yet to be asked which was if Clint was ok with this.

Clint thought about it for a second before shrugging his consent. It actually wasn't that difficult for him to decide to let them run rampant with his apartment, it needed to be done and Clint just didn't feel capable of taking on the job himself. He trusted them, with his life let alone to stay in his apartment alone have to make sure there was something to eat to keep them from foraging and his fridge and stealing his craving food. Even though it wasn't likely since Coulson hated grasshoppers and Natasha hated okra.

 


	6. Chapter 6

It had been five days since Clint had given Tasha and Phil free rein his apartment, and he was starting to not regret it, but to wonder what he had been thinking when he had agreed to it. Because since then their every free hour was filled with magazine clippings and paint colors. Even on assignment they would talk about furniture, tile and the abundance of natural light in the apartment. It was almost funny, to have them leave for anything from an hour to a day and suddenly have some new aspect of his place decided.

While he was able to get them to listen to them for some things, like removing the pink from their plans in the bathroom and keeping his kitchen counters, others such as the periwinkle had stayed despite his protest. so he was almost grateful when on Sunday they been given an assignment that took them out of the country.

It meant that he wasn't prepared on Monday morning to have a knock on his door at 7AM. He had already been awake for a while, exercising and making himself breakfast, the clothes for his shower neatly folded in the bathroom next to his sink.

He was instantly suspicious of it, because you had to get in through the main door. With a security station in the lobby, that had to always notify him of somebody on their way. Not that it couldn't be bypassed easily, but his experience was generally that you didn't unless you were planning something. Picking up his gun he left his smoothie on the kitchen counter as he went to see who it was. 

Quickly hiding the gun again as he saw Maria Hill at the door with a smirk and a book, two men standing behind her wearing paint splattered clothes with a clipboard. He was fairly certain though that they wouldn't be the only people working in his apartment today, Nat and Phil being themselves. He would have to get new friends, better friends, friends who didn't get Maria Hill to stay at his place to watch over the workers that they had hired, probably should have expected this though. 

Maria's smirk only grew as he opened the door and she saw him still in his sweat shirt and pants, probably somehow able to read his mind even as he sized them up.

"Well are you going to let us in?" He stepped to the side and watching them come in, making sure the two of them weren't armed.  
"Nat and Coulson put you up to this didn't they?" It wasn't that he didn't trust Maria, he did, with his life, just not alone in his apartment. Maria was the sort of person who'd rearrange everything you own, just to see if you notice.  
"Don't worry, my only plans are to order pizza, read my book and catch up on Supernatural and Doctor Who."  That didn't exactly fill him with a sense of faith but he still had to leave and a half hour and he was covered in sweat, smelled like a locker room and still hadn't had his breakfast.  
"Just don't make a mess. I don't want to come back and find my apartment trashed." He turned to look at the two painters who were measuring the area of his living room and discussing the logistics of putting down plastic around the short divider that separated his living room from his dining room and the L shaped island that did the same for his kitchen.

Sighing softly he went to the kitchen to take his vitamins, washing them down with his smoothie, listening to the sounds of the men moving around until he was finished. Taking a moment to clean out his dishes and putting them into the washer before he moved to his bathroom, he waited until the door was safely locked behind him before taking out his hearing aids. The quiet that came with him taking them out was welcome, since it meant that he could put the fact that there was going to be an unknown amount of people that he didn't know wandering around _his_ space. All he wanted to do was grab them and throw them out, while curled around his stomach hissing that nobody was allowed in his space. Which, was probably why he hadn't been told that they were coming, he'd have to be prepared for that reaction, when it came time for SHIELD's baby shower tradition.

Stripping off his shirt he looked down at his stomach, now softly curving out as he began to show. Not for the first time he had to wonder if he was doing the right thing, or if all he could think of when he saw Nickie would be their other dad. He dismissed it after a second and finished stripping to climb into the shower, it didn't matter how they were conceived, this was his baby.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Clint wasn’t allowed back into his own apartment until the next morning. When he did reenter it he was greeted by the fading scent of paint, the lack of most of his furniture, and a note written by Hill about when to expect deliveries with his new things. He supposes this is what it feels like to have an expert do this sort of thing, more than half relieved that he didn't have to deal with it, he'd found that he didn't have the energy to deal with a lot of things, outside of his work or SHIELD. He was sure that if his friends had been a little less understanding, or less determined to stay his friends he would have drifted away due to it. 

His therapist said that it’s normal, but that he should try anyways. His therapist has never had to deal with trying to train agents to hit something the size of a grape instead of a watermelon. He is in despair with this particular set, and it’s not helped at all that he is starting to apparently give off all the signs of being knocked up, from what he had been told he ‘glowed’. Which made it difficult for some like the arrogant Alpha in the latest group to take him seriously, the idiot would learn of course, or be kicked out of SHIELD. Though wiping the smirk off said idiot’s face had been fun. 

The colors of the living room, dining room, and kitchen were all earth tones, brightened with purple and gave it a warmth that it had lacked before. Thankfully they had left the kitchen counters alone, but he had new tile in the bathroom as well as a new sink. Exactly how they had managed it in a day was beyond him, but considering who had arranged it, not surprising. Probably well below their budget also knowing them, though god knows you wouldn't be able to tell from the way the two of them had plotted. There was a small note in the bathroom not to use the shower until the next day. Probably to allow the stuff holding the tile to dry.

He hated to admit it but the light red (not quite pink) and periwinkle mixed well with the darker tile and he liked it, he were a bit more petty he wouldn't have. Clint didn’t have time to stay and get used to it though, since he was due at his therapist’s appointment, then there was paperwork and the doctor’s appointment to get to, all before noon.  
Instead he quickly changed out of the sweats he had been wearing into clean clothes, Took a quick picture of each of the rooms and sent them along with a quick text to Nat and Phil, telling them how much he liked it. They wouldn't be able to send a reply for a while, until they were back from their assignment in most likely another 5 days, but he knew they'd get the short text. Pulling out a bottle of water he started drinking it as he checked his phone for the time and went to find his shoes again. Somehow the things always manage to move from where he had originally put them. 

His therapist appointment was always first thing in the morning and it was almost always emotionally draining. Clint knew that it was for his own good but it didn't mean he was always happy to go to it. She helped though; being able to talk to somebody about what had happened and his anxieties over the baby. She also had good ideas, Clint had gone to a support group for the first time a week ago on her suggestion. While not yet able to stand up and admit that he had been raped, it was a relief to be around people that knew what he was going through. Who talked about it and how much it had changed them, how most of their attackers had never been caught and they still lived in fear that they would come back and attack them again.  
The current session focused on the ultrasound about how it would be his first one and they would be checking to make sure that the baby was healthy and not underdeveloped in someway. About how scared he was that he would see the black and white picture of his kid and could only focus on what had been done to him, or worse hate the baby for it.  
It left Clint feeling wrung out like a wet dishcloth, like nearly all of them did. It's why he didn't mind doing paperwork after his therapy sessions, paperwork while annoying and never ending wasn't nearly as bad as dealing with people.  
He took another drink water wondering exactly how much he would need for the ultrasound in two hours. Putting down the mostly empty water bottle he pulled up the next form on his computer. This time a request to use the advanced training ground, in upstate New York, not even the best indoors range in the world could compare with five miles of nothing but grass, trees, a lake and a small ‘town’ to train. Clint loved to take snipers who had thought themselves the best in the world and proceed to pick them off, preferably while wearing the brightest, most garish outfit he could find, it made them shut up and listen. This year would be even better since by the time that he got the lot into the training fields he'd be visibly pregnant.

It took most of his time to get access for it on the days that he wanted, the training course was used for far more than just snipers. Everything from the more mundane urban hostage situations training to the more destructive weapons testing (everything from the latest Stark tech weapon to Carol Danvers crazy energy blasts) which meant that you not only had to pick the section of it that you wanted to use (Clint wanted to get the mile or so of trees) but also arrange a time period from anything from a few hours to over a week.  
It was a bigger pain in the ass than you would originally expect but Clint had done this particular song and dance before, and would be planning on using it in three weeks. At the wonderful time of three in the morning, after they had run there, and completed an obstacle course. He’d have to bring Nat or somebody, because by then he’d definitely not be allowed to run five plus miles and wouldn’t be able to climb over the larger barriers.  
He was surprised when his alarm went off, telling him that he only had forty five minutes before his appointment. With a half hour drive there from the SHIELD building he had fifteen minutes to shut everything down and go through the security.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to have to skip next friday's update. My cousin has died and his funeral will be on Friday. I will not have internet the day before or after so I will put up chapter 8 next week.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing last weeks update. My cousin's funeral was on Friday.

The doctor’s office was far calmer than the last place that he had gone to, before he had gone mercenary, long before he had joined SHIELD. It had been while he was still in the circus, a series of planned parenthoods across the country. Most of them surrounded by sneering, screaming people who had called him a murderer and the escort that he had been sent with a monster. They had terrified him when he was a fourteen year old who had just started his heats, with money given to him by the bearded lady to pay for his birth control pills. Had almost caused him to break another bone, when he had gone there at seventeen, still bandaged, with his arm in a cast, hiding his flinching at their jeers until one of them had said that he had deserved the beating that he had gotten. If he shut his eyes he could still remember the crunch of the man's nose under his fist.

There were a few cars already there at the Ob-Gyn, but none that he recognized, while he briefly considered getting out and going inside the building alone he dismissed it after a moment. It turned out to be a moot point because about 30 seconds after he had made that decision a SHIELD vehicle pulled in and Director Fury stepped out and looked around, with a level of paranoia that he was comfortable with. Clint didn’t know why he had been surprised to see him there, considering that he had also gone with Clint apartment hunting, but he was. He had known that the originally planned Natasha wasn’t going to be able to be there, but he had expected either Maria Hill or Sitwell.

He has friends outside of SHIELD of course, close enough that he could ask them to come with him. He trusted 4 in particular to deal with any panic attack he had even. The problem was that they would need to know details, in order to be any use. Details that were classified abd definitely not for civilians to see.  
That being said he knew that they knew that something up. They weren't exactly stupid and and in one case used to be in the mercenary field. But none of them had said anything probably figuring out tell them in his own time when he was comfortable enough. Matt had come to make sure that he was alright and had subtly given him the number for therapist whose speciality was rape victims.  
They had also treated him more gently than before, which Clint hadn’t tolerated so much as used to his advantage, until they had caught on. It had been fun to watch their faces turn green also, when his cravings had kicked in, with the exceptiob of Danny who had been the one to give him the chocolate covered grasshoppers when that particular craving had kicked in. Having spent most of his childhood and teen years in Tibet had given him a fondness for them.

Considering that he couldn't let his non-SHIELD friends come, and those within the agency was also limited he probably shouldn’t have been as surprised to see Nick there as he was. He seemed to know exactly what was going through Clint’s head also, from the way that he had studied the archer, then smirked. But said nothing instead asking if he was ready to go inside, which Clint was, because he had to pee and the sooner he had gotten the ultrasound over with, the better.  
The director spent most of his time on the phone, typing away at something as Clint filled in the documents at the clinic, noticing everything despite his one eye that was focused on the screen in front of him. Fury was the only person he knew that could successfully run a spy organization via text. Probably had sonething to do with the way that he was able to infuse even a simple text with a surprising amount of intimidation. Thankfully it didn’t take long for Clint to be called into the office, and for a moment he had to swallow his knee jerk reaction and shut his eyes as he walked in and looked around at the equipment. It was medical and not the same as the lab but he still had a moment where he had to remind himself that this was not the same as then.  
A short cough from behind him snapped him back into reality and he glanced back at his boss before giving him a grateful nod. Fury pushed by him, turning off his phone as he did at the doctor’s request. Somehow his presence in the room made the scene bearable. He had seen Fury pull everything from a hand gun to a grenade launcher from under that leather coat of his. It's weirdly reassuring for reasons that Clint doesn't want to look deeper into.

The first 10 minutes is just the doctor asking questions, or answering a few that Clint had. It's only when he is asked to take off his shirt that he tenses but then pulls off the thin sweater without a problem. He normally doesn't have a problem stripping, but he's in front of his _boss_ , it's weird.  
Without the sweater to hide it the soft swelling of his belly is plainly visible. The archer figured he had about a month at the most before he won't be able to hide it under his clothes at all.  
He didn't know what he would do then since people tend believe that being pregnant meant that you were public domain. The first thing that came to his mind was breaking hands, but no matter how satisfying it would be a bad idea.

Focusing on the possiblity of breaking of future hands instead of the uncomfortable feeling of the gel being spread across his stomach. It wasn't until the man pressed the actual device to his stomach that Clint started to pay attention. Listening to the doctor as he talked about the little one growing inside of him and watching as the baby moved around. It's only when it's pointed out to him that he could make out the quick but steady beat of his child's heart over the pounding of his own in his ears. That one sound, more than anything else is worth the stress and discomfort of the ultrasound, though the declaration that his kid is healthy and active is a close second.

He’s still relieved though when it’s over and the gel is wiped off and he finally gets to pee.


	9. Chapter 9

It was a cold early afternoon in late December, not yet reached 7 o'clock while the temperatures had stayed below 40°. Everybody who was outside at the time was miserable, except for the two instructors that had a sniper class standing outside at the start of SHIELD's largest obstacle course. Both of them covered in warm winter gear, one wearing a coat and pants a pristine white, but for her practical black combat boots. Her only identifying mark the two red stripes of hair hanging out of her hood.  
The other in a garish purple and orange so bright it seared the trainee's eyes, not even the thick sweater or thicker coat hid that he was very obviously pregnant.  
Melissa grinned at Clint as she studied the three men and two women in front of her and he checked over his ATV. She had taken advantage of being removed from field due to suspicion and begged Clint to be able to help him with the advanced training. Songbird wasn't a sniper but Clint didn't need one, he could handle that particular job himself, at least until his stomach got so large that it got in the way of his bowstring. No she was there for the bulk of the work, everything that didn't require an aim that was in the top 1% of the planet.   
Clint had laughed himself stupid at his trainees the first time that she entered the scene, her blue eyes cheerful and without her normal gear that allowed her to fly. They had taken one look at the female omega with her long silver and red hair, her lush form, standard field uniform and dismissed her entirely. Probably grateful that it wasn't the Black Widow who Clint knew they had been warned they might have to face.  
Which it made it so funny when she had proceeded to completely decimate them. Two of them had dropped out of the Agency after that, stating their reason as 'omegas don't have use in the field and can't be trusted as trainers.'  
The two of the had drank that night, herbal iced tea for him, red wine for her doing what Clint's reputation meant that he couldn't. Since apparently getting beaten by the legendary Hawkeye wasn't nearly the same as getting beaten by a regular agent. Not that Melissa Gold was a regular agent, she just wasn't somebody they recognized. They had toasted to the stupidity and hypocrisy of people that made weeding them out of the program easy.  
Now, though the trainees didn't know this would be the most important day that they had in their training. Today began their real simulations, and their final assessment, and it would start by seeing how far they could push themselves, then when they were so exhausted it bordered on torture, that's when the real work would begin. That was also why Melissa was going to be so invaluable, she'd be trainer and target, and if they wanted to dream of finding her they'd have to think far from the box. Or at least, above the treeline.  
The first thirty minutes is taken up by explaining part of the reason that they were there for, Clint was very proud to say that he didn't lie to them. It was, _technically_ a simple, straight forward day. They'd have to keep up with Agent Gold and then when they hit the tree line (a mass of forest that was so large it loomed ahead despite the miles between them and it) have to find her and shoot her with the laser gun they were provided while avoiding Clint. Last was a lecture of basic safety, since he'd had people almost freeze to death or suffer heat stroke by ignoring the basics, even with the gear they were wearing being water proof, before giving the nod to Melissa.  
Her bright smile grows sharp before yelling at them to start moving, and began to jog with most of them groaning front of them at the pace that they were used to. The smarter ones of the group casting doubting looks at Clint and her casting doubting looks as they fell in place and Clint started his ATV. One looked at the spare gas cans on his vehicle's back and looked visibly pale.

It took just under five minutes to reach the first obstacle, at their current pace. A thick brick wall that had a large puddle of mud on the other side hidden from view. The mud and the water at the course was the reason why all the clothing they were wearing was waterproof. Because everybody except for Clint and Melissa would be getting soaked over the course of the day, not even SHIELD could excuse trainees losing body parts due to frostbite. He reached it before them, sitting next to it to watch the small group running towards it.

Clint could see their disbelief as Melissa hit the wall and scaled it without breaking her stride. Reaching the top and jumping over the shallow mud pit without stopping, with the first of the trainees reaching the top just as she hit the ground. He stopped to stare at her before Clint yelled at him to keep moving, scowling he pushed himself off the wall and landed directly in the middle of the mud. He hid his smirk as he yelled again at the same man, to keep moving, as the next one jumped over, just missing the mud. He watched as half of them landed in the mud, and the other half missing it before going on to catch up and pass over Melissa.

The second obstacle was naturally made, a steep hill covered in pebbles with ropes anchored at the top hanging down so that nobody killed themselves when they slipped and fell. Which they did everybody but Melissa did, she only avoided it because he could tell that she was cheating. The slight glow of her red energy wings giving it away, but only to Clint who was positioned at the top to watch them climb up. She gave him another bright smile as she reached him at the top then used the wings again to glide down, picking up her pace so that she was near to a run. Clint could tell from the way her eyes were sparkling, the bright smile, and the way that she was shamelessly cheating on the course that she was really enjoying herself. Especially since she was supposed to cheat, the question was if they would notice, or at least piece the clues together.

It continued like that for the next two hours, up hills, down them, climbing ropes, tires, crawling under wires that gave you a shock if you went to high. All at a speed that gradually worked it's way up so that by the time they took a break to drink some water and for Clint to refill his gas can they have been and flat out run for over a half hour.  
They were separated while they drank and caught their breath, most of them trying to hide the fact that they were so exhausted they were near dropping. But neither Clint or Melissa wanted them talking to one another, half of the challenge was noticing the unusual or out of place and that will be ruined at the pointed it out to one another.  
They spent the break discussing it with one another, Clint could already point out one or two that were standing out. They wondered if anybody notice that despite everything up to including crawling in the dirt Melissa's snow white clothing stayed untouched by dirt or dust. There were other clues, that something strange was going on, if you paid enough attention, the problem was that most of them were too focused on just breathing and getting over the next task, _exactly_ what they didn't want them to do.  
One or two cast resentful looks over to them, probably wondering how Agent Gold managed to do everything that they had without so much as losing her breath, Clint mentally put a mark against their names. Melissa handed him his own water and a small bag of trail mix, turning so that they wouldn't see him snack. He was at the point that he couldn't go five minutes without being hungry, let alone over three hours.  
“Being pregnant sucks.” He stated before he took a bit as Melissa looked behind her to the recruits.  
“Well, it could have been twins.”  
“Knowing my luck it’ll probably happen.” Melissa arched an eyebrow at him in disbelief.  
“A bit late for there to be any splitting of zygots in you isn’t it?”  
“You’re a woman that can create energy wings and vibrate air with sound. I’m taking no chances.” He grinned, nudging her arm with the electronic works for a second, causing her to laugh and nod in agreement.  
“Fair enough. think we should get back into tormenting them for the cause?” She nodded towards the newbies who had been watching them. “See anybody who’s figured it out yet?”  
“None, Maybe we’ll do an essay at the end, ‘this is all the weird shit I noticed.’”  
“That would give it away too well. Did you have to go through all this?”  
“Nah, I was recruited by Fury, literally in the field.” She brightened and straightened out, leaning forward.  
“tell me the giant scorpion story is true. I will give you every paycheck I will ever have if it is true.”  
“Classified.” His voice took a sing song tone before he finished off his trail mix and small bottle of water.  
“You’re evil.” She shook her head and then turned her head, and gave them their ten second warning that she was going to start again as Clint got onto the ATV, mentally counting down to five and watched as she broke out into a sprint as he started the machine underneath him. Half of the trainees were startled and paused for a second while the other half broke into a run following her, directly into the path of the next obstacle.  
Which actually wasn’t an obstacle but a small stream that came up to mid thigh at it’s deepest, it was also the reason that everything they wore was waterproof, not even SHIELD would have enjoyed it if they had allowed one or more of their trainees to lose toes from frostbite and soaked feet. Not even Melissa could have gone through it without being slowed down, though water carried sound vibrations better than air it took most of her effort just to keep from getting wet. Normally not something she bothered with, too much of a pain for too little reward, but today it was part of the test, the most obvious part of it really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and chapter 10 were supposed to be one chapter, but I decided to cut it in half.


	10. Chapter 10

It takes longer than Clint had thought to get the group up to the forest, the cold and the water in the course slowing them down more than he had expected, as parts frozen over kept breaking under their weight. It had startled the trainee the first time it happened that he had fallen, going face first into the path, thankfully with nothing more than a couple of skinned palms for it. Even Melissa was growing tired by the time that they reached the time they reached the trees. It was well into the night, and she had needed to stop using her wings, their bright red glow would have been far too obvious.

Despite riding on an ATV all day, Clint was also tired, both from keeping control of the machine, on slippery and uneven terrain and from his pregnancy. What he felt like doing was just laying down and taking a short nap.

Instead he gives Melissa a three minute headstart, more than long enough that she needs to get out of sight, and probably in the air. He gets off his ATV and picks up his bow and quiver from the back, to the surprise of the trainees. He's sure that they believed he would stay on the ATV all day, and watch him with renewed wariness.

He had told them when they first started the second part of the course, that they would have to find Melissa and ‘shoot’ her with the laser guns while avoiding be caught by the other instructor. He didn't know who they were thinking would appear but they were expecting him. A couple of them started to complain, about having to worry about not hurting a pregnant omega, to be silenced by Clint's glare.

They unlike Melissa get a 30 minute headstart, both because they would need it and to hammer and the lessons that they were supposed to be learning here. Most of them smirk at one another as they jog into the woods, expecting an easy win. Three of them are far more cautious and enter quieter and with more calculation.

He quietly plays a game on his phone, listening for any noise, he can just barely pick up the low hum Melissa's wings, the noise of animals, and thankfully none of his trainees. At least they weren't that incompetent, he shook his head, thinking of which he was going to find first. Deciding it was going to be Bennett, a deceptively small beta, who prided themselves on his ability to hide anywhere.

He had time and time again rejected Clint's advice, staying only because for the most part it was a deserved pride.  But he believed himself to be the best and infallible, if he didn't take the lesson to heart he would be washed out before the week is over. He didn't have a set order in which to find each of them, but he knew exactly the set of circumstances for each one. He had months to observe them and their strengths and weaknesses it would be incredibly easy, if he did it right it could take less than four hours.

Made even easier because all they saw was a pregnant omega, it was surprising at just how invisible he’d become. He could go out to the field, take out a target who would never suspect him because of his growing belly, and probably be escorted away if he screamed and held his stomach. He dismissed the thought immediately, as he started into the woods. This group should have known better, just because he had gotten knocked up didn't mean that he had suddenly forgotten everything that didn't have anything to do with raising a child and housekeeping.

It didn’t take him long to sigh under his breath in disbelief, able to see with only a casual scan three trails that would, eventually, lead to three different people, marking them for future reference. Clint would backtrack and follow them later, after he gets his first one, but for now he has a goal in mind and he's fairly sure he already knows where they're at. That's Bennett's biggest problem, he's so focused on hiding that he forgets something simple like making sure he doesn't have an obvious pattern on where he hides.

Sure enough right where he thought Bennett would be, he see the first signs of a hide. He can't see the beta that he knows is there, so he can’t just shoot. His bow isn't a gun that can fire fake rounds, he could end up causing serious injury if he hit the wrong place. Like accidentally shooting somebody in the ass, he has never done the first and technically hasn't done the second either, he has evidence to prove his claim that he never shot anybody in the ass.

He is still trying to figure out which end is which when he sees a short sudden moment, a spider skittering away into the darkness and a slim portion of the bottom heel of a left boot. The arrows he has on him have felt tips with a small piece of metal on the end to set off the loud, obnoxious beeping that indicates a lethal hit which could be heard for almost a mile. It's music to Clint's ears, that and Bennett's swearing as he comes out of hiding, Clint's arrow on his back at the base of his neck. He's covered in mud and muck, both wet and dry and is looking at Clint like the omega grew a third head but quiets and starts to head out of the woods.

Next is Andrews, who likes to hide in trees, but she never looks up. Ironic, really, he was in her line of sight if only she had looked up and to the left. Then Jordan, Scared of snakes, it's winter and freezing. Even more so because the felt plushie didn't even look much like a snake, more like a large green worm, so he really didn't have any excuses for his reaction. It was funny though, to watch the man nearly run into a tree in his mad scrabble to get away, maybe now he'll take his sessions to deal with the phobia seriously.

Mitchell and Stebbenthaler both look like bushes, the second he almost past by until they had tried to suppress a sneeze, he's fairly certain that in order to get to the size of thing Stebbenthaler had collapsed his spine or removed his limbs or something. He's surprised that none of them notice him, at all. Sure he's hiding, and it's night, but he's practically wearing a neon sign. Normally he'd get a comment of 'God dammit, I thought that was you.' From one or two, half of them were even honest about actually seeing him.

Clint kinda wonders if he holds up two twigs in each hand and stands very still if they'll mistake him for a tree, and what kind of excuse they’d made for the coloration.

He can hear the low hum of Songbird, getting more distant, but still in the air. She's been following him around for the most part, probably quietly laughing her head off up there. If he's lucky she's taking video up there, he knows she's got her phone on her for that purpose.

O'neil is the hardest, he's careful, methodical, smart and he pays attention. Which thank god because he wants to sleep and is craving a steak with baked potatoes, vegetables all drenched in horseradish. Which is weird because one of the things that he can't stand is horseradish.

O'neil's biggest weakness was that he was the worst shot of the small group. Still Clint saw something interesting as he crept up to as close as possible without being seen. Mostly hidden behind two large rocks with the stream they had waded through at his side, was O'neil his attention upwards through a break in the tree canopy for her. Still Clint wanted to bang his head against one of the rocks that O'neil was leaning against, because all of his focus was on the trees and he didn't notice Clint, less than a yard away.

There's a moment, though, when he stops and looks downwards at his surroundings, passing over the bright orange section of Clint's coat visible over the rocks before returning to the trees above. Without moving from where he was, and Clint actually does start banging his head against the rocks for a second before getting up on the top of the rock behind him.

So when Clint dropped from where he was next to him and sent him sprawling into the water in surprise. Swearing until he looked up to see who it was, and then paling since less than 2 hours had passed from the time that Clint had entered the forest. Then upwards to the muffled laughter of Songbird above them, silhouetted in red, hand covering his mouth as he shoulders shook with laughter, her other hand holding her phone pointed down at them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. Life distracted me until after I was at work.   
> Any and all spelling and grammar errors are going to be blamed on the fact that I put this chapter up from my phone.

There are upsides to working for SHIELD, one of which was baby showers, or the tradition put in it’s place. Instead of a party, and games and gifts or the like, there was instead a large cake in the shape of a diaper placed in one of the rooms with the name on it. The next day, if there was no verified response from the person in question (Generally a note under the name, and then confirmation of the verification) Open season was declared on their residence. 

From the time they went to work to when they got back you did your damned best to breach the security of the place, and leave your gift.   
Then the person having the baby would have to try and guess what you had left. If they were wrong about what you got the next day a small dirty diaper cake appeared where you were, even if you were in the middle of Antarctica. (It was still debated how that she had managed to leave her gift, and how later on she had gotten that cake.)

It was, in Clint’s opinion, damned good fun, and something that he had done more than once, leaving a gift of some sort within somebody’s house or apartment. He had yet to go without getting a dirty diaper cake two days later, one of his proudest accomplishments, considering.

It was also something he was looking forward to, because the people he worked with got creative with everything. You could only do so much until you got bored and started doing things like filling out your reports in comic book format. Which probably would have been reprimanded if they hadn’t been more accurate and useful than the normal kind.

So at 6 1/2 months pregnant he found himself looking at a large diaper cake, ignoring the discrete looks that he was getting from a few there, and the speculation in their eyes.  
He grinned as he cut off a large part of the red velvet cake looking at the tag with his name on it, hand written with an unfamiliar writing style. He had no intention of putting a stop this event. What he was going to do was upping the security, make a real challenge for Nick, Natasha and Phil.   
Or at least as much as you're going to get without being on the helicarrier or a world leader. 

The next day he went through his morning routine before looking around at the bare looking baby's room. Everything that he gotten so far was able to be neatly put away and in either the dresser, changing table or closet.   
There were toys of course but not many as he still have to buy a toy chest for them. Along with a few other essentials such as a baby swing, bouncy seat and shelves for books. He would also need a baby monitor for a deaf parent, but so far they had proved to be more difficult to find than the normal kind.   
He made a note of where he was before locking out and locking the front door behind him. A security system was no excuse for tempting fate by being stupid enough not to lock all entrances. Especially when you knew for a fact that people were going to break in. 

Work went much the same Clint was no longer allowed on the range since the baby had developed the ability to hear. With his still expanding stomach beginning to get in the way of his bowstring he had needed to adapt to stay in practice. It meant a lot of dart games against himself.  
For the most part he had slipped into a supervisory role as time went by, often providing logistical support, or actibg as a handler for those in the field. Much if the time was spent inspecting departments for any discrepancy. Which there was, everything from missing office supplies, mostly stolen with the exception of R&D where it was more like misplaced and forgotten, to a misplaced jet that he had needed to circle the globe twice in order to find.  
There was also the uncovered double agent in Dubai, that had been a pain in the ass and had ended in one of the messiest and most public assassination attempts that Clint had ever seen.

The guy might as well had been some crazy with a gun trying to blow off the president’s head, Clint was ashamed on the part of his profession. As a pregnant omega dealing with mood swings and almost having the idiot hit him in the stomach, it was pure luck that Clint hadn’t beaten the man to death before the Dubai police pulled him off. (when you are saved from your target by the police in Dubai you’ve got problems, thank god the mole never became a field agent)  
Clint had wanted to dig deeper into it, because somebody that incompetent should not have been allowed to go that far, but had been pulled off the case by Sitwell, with the reassurance that he’d deal with it.

Today though, it was a matter of doing more paperwork, getting things into order before anybody in the ‘missing jet’ mess started to complain. Plus he had been told just the day before that he would be able to go onto Maternity leave in as soon as two weeks from then. Which would have driven him crazy, and wasn’t necessary, since so far his had been an easy pregnancy. He didn’t yet know when he’d go on leave, if he could help it he’d be at work when he went into labor. That at least he could put off for now, though he’d have to make his decision about it soon enough, before he hit 8 months.

He’s still working when he leaves at 8 pm, exhausted, his feet and back killing him, still feeling mauled from the inside out from the Nickie’s kicking. Which thankfully that had stopped a bit ago, giving their daddy a bit of a break. he had met people in his lamaze classes that had said that they enjoyed this, that it was their favorite part.

He was fairly sure that they were insane, because this was a healthy, easy pregnancy, the cool temperatures of winter early spring helping keep the furnace that his body had turned into down. Then there was the aches and pains, the bone deep exhaustion, the stretch marks that had to be dealt with before they turned into identifying marks and worst of all the belief that his body and pregnancy had somehow become public property. Loud noises or not if another complete stranger tried to touch him he was going to shoot their hand off.

Still all of that came to a halt as he walked into his apartment, to the sight of a brand new baby swing, decorated with hot air balloons, set up in a place that he could see it from all three rooms. Which reminded him what day it was, and what he had been looking forward to, but forgotten in the growing mountain of paperwork.  
In the kitchen next to his ice cream was a teething ring, in the pantry with the formula that he had bought in case he couldn't produce enough milk on his own were three new packs of it. The still unopened bottles had a new pack of four in various colors next to them. Somebody apparently had found out that he was planning to breast feed since he was looking at a very nice breast pump also. He hoped that thing came with instructions on how to bottle the stuff, Clint wasn't dealing with jackasses trying to sexualize his feeding his baby.

The bathroom had a small baby tub- which he hadn’t even thought of getting until he saw it, with a bag of bath toys suction cupped to the side of his shower. That would be Maria most likely.  
Bottles of tear free bodywash now stood alongside his own. In his linen closet were neat stacks of soft rags and small soft towels, also Maria. Below them were new diaper wipes, stacks of diapers and rash cream.   
His dinner dinged in the microwave and he went to get it, noticing something in his room as he did. Set on the table next to his bed was one end of a baby monitor, one meant for somebody who was hearing impaired. Now that he was actually paying attention he could see where two others had been set in the living room and kitchen.   
Now that one was Dane, in R&D until his broken leg finished healing. He was the man who had made his hearing aids for his assignments with built in comms. He had worked with the Knight before, and it was always interesting. 

With dinner he walked into Nickie's room, where bookshelves had been added. New toys and books now decorated them. Nearby a new plush rocking chair sat, and that has to be from Fury.   
The bright red teddy bear is from Natasha, along with some of the other Toys, and the book on Russian language. Her own childhood stolen from her and Clint knew she got things to let other children have theirs.   
The mystery of who had gotten the baby swing had been solved when he saw the mobile hanging over the crib. Seven brightly colored plush hot air balloons hung from it I was matched by a hot air balloon blanket in the crib. There was no doubt that was from Phil.   
Some of the books and toys were from Carol, A couple toys he knew also from Dane along with the end of the baby monitor. Sitting quietly on the table next to the crib still turned off until needed.   
With a big ones all the way it was easier to figure out who had given him what, writing down the names while he was eating his dinner so he wouldn't forget them tomorrow morning.   
He was fairly sure that he and make sure that nobody would be getting a dirty diaper cake.


	12. Chapter 12

Its a combination of bad luck and bad decisions that leads to the situation with the alphas that stand on the corner of Clint’s new street to come to a head. He’s been throwing water on their heads every time he catches them catcalling at people on the street, which is fairly often. They've had trouble catching him on the street, only because he had been purposely avoiding them. He’s doing better, but Clint’s aware that he’s still on a hair trigger and while he knows a lot of people who would cheer, killing people on the street was generally frowned upon. There's no doubt in his mind though that they made the assumption that Clint is for some reason afraid of them, which is why they haven't been able to find him.  
But on that day, he’s on the streets, walking down to his favorite restaurant, with his friends from outside of SHIELD, walking because he’s had cramps on and off for most of the day and the road bumps in a car just made them worse, plus it's a nice spring day and it's only a few blocks. Which is when he runs into the idiots as they were leaving Clint’s building and that is when they make the first of their bad decisions. Clint doesn't know what they were thinking as they approached the small group, probably confidence about their numbers and the fact that there was only one Alpha, Luke. Which was stupid just in a general basis, but especially stupid when the two omegas were Jessica Jones-Cage, Clint even heavily pregnant, and the beta is Danny Rand. He’s fairly sure that they all have files on SHIELD, Jessica, at the very least for being a former mercenary, though he’d seen her do shit that was matched only by Carol.

Clint watches as the group of men in their late teens and early twenties swaggered up to his small group. Jessica hits her face with her palm, her eyes saying ‘this is your fault’ to Clint as Luke rolls his eyes, crossing his arms as the first signs of doubt flickered crossed the group’s faces. None of their posturing and puffing of their chests can match the sheer _size_ of Cage-Jones.  
Danny isn't as large as the Alpha, but he doesn't have to be, he’s taller than Clint by about three inches and just as broad, and according to him raised in a monastery in Tibet. Clint always wanted to know the story there because heirs to companies almost as large as SI didn't just randomly appear in mystical kung-fu monasteries that Clint had previously believed only existed in bad movies. All Clint can think of, as another, worse, wave of cramps hit him is that he _really_ doesn't need this right now.

In the end, it wasn't a fight, but only because a fight suggests that one side had a chance of winning. They had strutted around, waving their hands and beating against their chests, which reminded Clint of documentaries of the great apes. The ones that he watched before his mood swung and he found himself in tears because the damned things had found a fig tree. The street alphas hooted and hollered more than the apes though, Clint really had to bite down to keep himself from laughing in their faces.  
It’s not until they took a swing at Clint that the small group that had formed a barrier around him reacted. He had for a second, reacted, wrapping protectively around his belly as Danny grabbed the gorilla alpha and threw him back towards the others, most of whom weren't able to get out of the way of the flailing body, with Luke following behind a second later.

The upside to the entire thing was that it didn't last long, and Clint would probably never have to deal with this particular group of morons again. The downside was that a concerned neighbor, seeing the group of alphas walking towards them had called the cops. So instead of going down to the barbecue place they were instead having to deal with the cops, with Jessica's eyes still on Clint, still accusing as she complained about one of them getting blood on her shoes. Though, that too didn't last long, with one look at Clint, looking ready to pop at any second, and then at the crowd with multiple people recording what had happened on their phones and within a half an hour they were allowed to go again. Less time when they discovered that it was Jessica who had an excellent reputation with the NYPD, and Danny who was filthy stinking rich.

Now Clint needed to pee _again_ , and was starving _again_ , with the aches that came from being nine months pregnant developing as he had stood there waiting for the questioning to be over with. He wants to pee, sit down and eat, in exactly that order. Actually he wants to roll over and die, as the worst wave of cramps yet hits him then and he puts a hand to the small of his back where it hurts the most hissing out his breath in pain, waving away their concern with saying that he’d feel better once he’d sit down.  
It’s not until Jessica looks down and twists up her face, asking if he couldn't have waited that he looks down to see liquid beginning to slowly pooling on the ground beneath his feet and soaking through his loose clothes. His head jerks back up to her, shock and panic starting to well in his eyes because he’s not due for another week.  
He doesn't realize that he's said that aloud until Luke freaks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few more chapters until the kid arrives, and thank god for that, because writing pregnant people is a bitch.  
> As it turns out though your water breaks 99% of the time long after you've gone into labor, it's actually the pressure of contractions that breaks it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this is a day late. I tried to update yesterday but I had to do it on my cellphone and that... did not end well. Never walk and update people. NEVER, I saw my life flash before my eyes and sprained my ankle trying.

As it turns out, Clint doesn't drive himself to the hospital, instead one of the cops there to break up the fight does. It’s not the first time he’s been in a cop car, hell he’s stolen and driven two of them in his life time, but it’s the first time he’s sit in the passenger seat with the cop driving. With Danny calling Natasha as Clint called his doctor, who was a bit surprised but promised to be at the hospital soon enough.   
The Beta had looked a bit surprised as Natasha had first growled at him about how he had managed to get her friend’s phone. Then at the violent swearing in Russian and the shouting at somebody else in the room (one person of many from the sounds of it) before she asked Danny what hospital they were heading to, probably surprised the cop also.  
His doctor isn't at the hospital when he arrives, although he had her reassurances when she hung up that she was walking out the door towards her car. He thanks the cop who gave him a ride as he walked into the hospital, and talks to the omega male behind the welcome desk.   
It’s going well, right up to the moment that Clint is being escorted into the room and the person he meets is not his doctor. The woman who is his doctor is a female beta that was highly recommended in the deaf community. Who Clint knows, made sure to make a note that there shouldn't be any Alphas that Clint didn't allow in the room with him, it had been the first thing that he covered with her, absolutely, under no circumstances should there been unvetted Alphas.   
The woman in front of him is an alpha, and looks him up and down before reading his chart and turning to Danny to ask, oh so politely, gently and so subtly condescendingly where Clint’s alpha was. Clint wants to strangle her, he is giving birth, currently in a great deal of pain and is not going to put up with this woman and her prejudices.   
She actually jumps back in surprise when he tells her off, trying to work around the pain he's in and his blind fury to yell at her while forcing her out the door when his doctor finally arrives, and glares down at the condescending alpha while pushing her out the door.   
The people that he had talked to had gushed about his doctor, her skills and her bedside manner and about how she gently lead them all through the process. With Clint she’s blunt almost to the point of rudeness, and as she tells him to get into the bed so she can examine him, and something in him eases. It’s a kneejerk reaction, he knows, not even because of her, but because he still can’t take any signs of sympathy or pity or worse somebody saying ‘I understand what you’re going through.’ He’s goes to a support group and unless they were in it, they didn't understand, they were never going to understand.  
Danny, with Luke and Jessica behind him now, looked surprised at her, but didn’t say anything as they watched their friend relax, for the first time that he had since he knew that he was in labor. Relaxing all the way once Natasha walked in, looking as though she had changed into her civilian clothes on the way there, her hair is ruffled which drives her nuts normally but she doesn't even notice it right now. She smiled at Clint and immediately said that she couldn’t wait for her new niece to arrive, getting a laugh out of him before the doctor talked to him, telling him that, so far, everything was going alright, though they would have to be careful for Shoulder Dystocia, which nearly 40% of male omegas dealt with, due to their more narrow hips. She didn't comment when Clint made sure, yet again that she knew that yes, he did want an epidural. The last thing that he wanted was to feel all of the pain that was going to be coming his way.   
He was in the middle of another contraction with Natasha helping him through it when Nick arrived with Phil just behind him. They shifted as the two men walked in, a bit taken aback by the fact that they couldn’t tell what secondary gender the elder african american man was. But Clint brightened when he saw them, greeting them between gritted teeth as he went through another contraction.   
Explaining to them once his contractions were over that apparently he had been in labor since early that morning though it only gone to the hospital wants his water had broken. Neither them haven't surprise at this, shaking their heads and saying that only he would ignore his on labor until it was pointed out to him.   
Another wave of contractions had started, by far the worst yet, he had clenched his teeth but couldn’t help the wheezing groan that escaped through his lips, as his doctor walked in to check his progress. Then asked everybody to leave except Natasha who Clint insisted stay. Saying he had begun to move into active labor, the baby’s head beginning to crown and that she had suspected that her worry about shoulder dystocia had been realized.   
The moan that Clint let out had nothing to do with pain when he heard that as Natasha took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. The doctor explained as her assistants walked in what they would possibly have to do In order to get the child's head out before he or she suffocated. But that due to the dystocia he will not be able to get an epidermal, he nearly screamed at the woman that he didn't care as long as she got his baby out before it died.   
He endured being moved around by his legs in order to try and jar the child loose. Swearing violently as it happen then another wave of the contractions and he was told not to push, holding onto Natasha's hand as she reassured him that it will be alright.  
It's not until nearly two minutes had past and Clint’s fear and panic started to reach his face that the doctor said that she was going to have to reach in and physically move the baby from where was lodged. Something must have shown on his face, even as he nodded because Nat moved over to cover his face and murmured in his ear that he’d need to talk in Russian before moving back and nodding at the doctor to continue.  
The moment Clint felt her touch him he freaked and started to move his legs to kick her away, swearing violently and his voice going from pain filled to panic and threats in Russian as Nat put a hand on his knee to stop his initial reaction. Then nodded at the startled doctor to continue, with noises from behind the closed door, ending after a few seconds, with Nick's voice raising over the sounds.  
Every time he felt her move he would panic and twitch and require Natasha to gently stop him from moving his legs to kick at the doctor and assistants. Thankfully it didn't take very long and he could actually feel the baby shift inside of him and the doctor take her hand out of him. Then he was told to push again and that was painful enough to make a scream as he did. It was worth it though as his doctor playing that the baby was free and that she was a girl. For a moment, a brief terrifying moment, he thought that they had to take too long and then Nicole let out her first cry.

Putting in the IUD that Clint asked for is far easier than the dysocia. It's an easy procedure anyways, easier for Clint because he falls asleep as they're getting the device.  
Twenty minutes later exhausted, sweaty and still in residual pain he was holding her for the first time with everybody else called them to look at his newborn daughter. Nobody had missed the fact that he had named his daughter after Nick, but all he could think about as he looked down at her was beautiful and how perfect she looked. Picking out for familiar features, she had his ears and his mouth. Her eye shape and nose was different but her eyes were the milky brown that would eventually turn blue. It put the last of his fears, that looking at her all he would see was the winter soldier, to rest because all I could see was his precious perfect little girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoulder Dystocia is when the baby's shoulder gets stuck on the mother's hip. It's more common on narrower hips and I figured it be something even more common for a gender who's hips are not built for birth.  
> Updates will be put on hold after next week, for National Novel Writing Month. I will be writing this story for NaNo though.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Kedreeva who ran writing races during Nanowrimo, which managed to allow me to write over a dozen new chapters to this story, before it happened and I lost my energy and inspiration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that I vanished for much longer than I had intended. Less than two weeks into November my brother in law committed suicide and it drained a lot of the energy and will out of me. I decided to take care of myself instead of trying to force myself into write a full length novel, then later trying to edit and post it here while still suffering from my bout of depression and dealing with Christmas.  
> While I've started to write again, I'm still working my way through my emotions. I'll try to stick to my Friday updates but I will probably miss some. I apologize ahead of time for this, but atm I'm prioritizing my own emotional health over the story.

It had been two months since Clint had given birth, in that time his world had narrowed down to his daughter, diapers, feedings and the near constant war with dirty laundry and exhaustion. Especially when paired with his determination to get himself back into shape by the time that his maternity leave ended, a self imposed task made more difficult because Nikki was only just reaching the age that she could be placed into a stroller and taken with him for a run.

The entire thing had been made much easier by his friends, who with the exception of Phil had been visiting frequently, making sure that he got outside of his apartment and stayed within the loop. Phil only not coming since he was caught up in his current self imposed assignment of investigating SI and their books taking advantage of the confusion that Tony Stark’s absence had created.

Clint didn’t resent the man’s not coming around, he had known Phil for years and understood him well. The man was a combination of a shark and a pitbull with a bone, never letting go even as he ripped bloody chunks out of wherever he suspected corruption. The man had toppled entire governments and as far as Clint was concerned he just had to hope that he got back in time to watch the fireworks.

Natasha and Fury had been around though, when they were not working, on missions or dealing with the biggest pain in the ass- the World Security Council. A group of people appointed to oversee SHIELD and other international security organizations, that had no idea what they were doing and believed that they did.

Worse still, as far as Clint was concerned, was that they reacted to every unknown thing by being scared and attacking what scared them. A bad enough reaction when it’s just some asshole out in the country, worse when it’s a group of people with access to nuclear weapons it was a recipe for disaster. Whatever it was that Fury had that kept him from shooting them in frustration Clint didn’t have. He’d been tempted to, just by dealing with the results of their stupid, fear driven mistakes.

From Nick’s visits though, Clint could tell that at the moment they weren’t too big of a problem at the moment. No more than they normally were at least, with the fuss from Tony Stark’s disappearance having finally started to calm down.

While it was clear that the director adored the little girl who was named after him, it was just as clear from the moment that he had first seen Clint burp her with the milk she had just drank going down the burping cloth that he was content to adore her from a distance. A safe, clean distance, at least until she was potty trained.

Natasha didn't have that problem, if anything she held Nikki almost as much as Clint did. It was good that she was so excited to be Aunt Natasha, if not then Nikki would probably grow up thinking that she was her mother. It was according to Nat, a far better position to be in, since she got to spoil her niece and give her back when she needed to be changed.

Natasha was holding her at the moment, waiting for their other friends to arrive at the restaurant. A place in hell’s kitchen, somehow designed so that the table they were currently seated in was much quieter than the rest of the restaurant. Which was good, since while Nikki was starting to spend more time awake,  she was  still asleep most of the time, including at that moment.

Tasha had met the closest of  his  off work friends when Clint had given birth and become fast friends with Jessica. Much to the horror of Jessica's husband and Clint, who watched them meet for lunch and talk with glee, sharing tactics, spa treatments, the pros and cons of knives vs guns, and the latest deals at their favorite stores. Clint had walked in one day when they were both at his apartment to find that in the time it took for him to shower they had moved the topic from known threats to the best place to hide a gun in a sheer teddy.

Clint was about to text them when a familiar face walked in towards their table, his way guided to them by the hand of one of the waiters on his shoulder. Matt Murdock was a bit weird, with a guilt complex and prone to bouts of self-righteousness when not slapped down, but a good man. He was also one of the most capable people that Clint had ever meet, despite or maybe because he was also blind.

Clint had met the guy just after he lost his hearing, going to a specialized school, where Matt had been one of the tutors. He had no idea how a blind man has learned sign language, let alone with the fluency that Matt had, but the lawyer did.  Clint had always figured that if anybody could do it through sheer determination and a desire to prove everybody wrong, it’d be Matt Murdock. It was probably part of what made him such a good lawyer, the guy was almost as stubborn as Phil was.

The waiter put down a menu in braille for the man with a polite smile and asked if he wanted anything to drink. It brightened at the sight of Nikki as he took Matt's drink, while Matt’s attention seemed to focus on Nat.

"I don't think we've met. I'm Matt Murdock."  

"Natasha Romanova." She had focused almost as much as he had, with those watching almost ducking the sparks flying between them. If they had been able to, they would probably start staring into one another’s eyes and declaring love at first sight.

For a moment, a short moment, Clint seethed with jealousy watching the two of them. Furious at the thought that Matt was daring to try and steal his alpha from him. Then he rolled his eyes at himself as he recognized his reaction for what it was. His instincts going possessive to keep the closest alpha in his life, especially after his baby had been born and her father wasn't around to provide for her. Even if the last thing that Clint wanted was for her father to be anywhere but in the grave.

Thankfully they didn't notice, too absorbed into their conversation, about Russian Ballet and Gymnastics. Clint honest and truly wished the both of them luck, the two of them were high maintenance, for entirely different reasons, with demanding jobs.

Thankfully Clint didn’t have to sit there, feeling like a third wheel for very long as two others joined them after only a couple of minutes. Taking in the sight of the two alpha love birds all but cooing at one another with a combination of amusement, surprise and happiness that they seemed to be hitting it off so well.

Jess and Luke greeted them warmly, sitting down across from one another as Matt and Nat said hello before turning back to their newly found object of affection. The conversation had turned onto how long Clint had before he had to go back to work when the final member of their group had arrived, apologizing for his lateness before sitting down on the other side of Matt across from Clint. He had glanced at the pair on the other side of the table once before looking towards Clint to continue what he had been about to say.

"Three weeks, just about. I've already arranged things with the daycare." Clint had known about the daycare before he had gotten pregnant, but he hadn’t ever believed that he would need to use it. Or that it would take so many hoops, getting her into the daycare was easy, that took a simple phone call and registration, it was everything else that was the problem. They seemed to have a form for everything up to including the exact number of diapers she was likely to go through.

Clint was just grateful that SHIELD had a daycare, he didn’t have any family left, and even if he had he wouldn’t have left his daughter alone in their care for a second let alone a day or more while he was on mission. Plus no matter how close he was to them he couldn’t exactly ask his friends to watch them for that long either. However he was far from the only person at SHIELD who had come from a background like his own, with a similar situation. Thus the daycare, which catered to the needs of agents who could be out of country for anything from a few hours to a week.

Clint took Nicole from Natasha as she started to stir in her aunt’s arms, most likely wanting to be fed, but he had learned to never dismiss the possibility of her needing a diaper change, even just after it had been changed. Or during, he would be forever grateful that particular incident hadn’t involved anything remotely solid.

Thankfully as he had thought she was hungry and he was able to get out her bottle of breast milk (don’t even get him started on the debate on whether or not he should breast feed in public- getting put onto some pervert’s site and his identity blown all over the internet was not something that he was interested in.)

Focussing on getting her to eat, Nicole was an easy baby, but still had a bit of trouble getting used to the bottle, he missed part of the conversation, only looking up when the table went silent around him. Seeing why after a second with the waiter who was looking down at him patiently.

He could almost picture the words ‘are you sure this is what you want’ about to cross the man’s lips as Clint asked for the spiciest thing on the menu when the man thought better of it, nodded and walked away. Danny watched him go before turning back to the subject, one of Jess’s latest clients, a woman who had apparently been framed for a series of thefts that had, as Jess and Luke had found out, never actually happened. Instead they had found out that it was all made up by a former tenant/boyfriend of hers that she had dumped and owed her money.

They had also had a run in with ninjas of all things, which had been a serious wtf moment for everybody involved when Luke had walked into a business office looking for documents to prove her alibi to find a ninja. Since, apparently according to Luke, ninjas were like cockroaches about two dozen more had shown up. Disappearing again when the police had finally shown up, leaving him to spend a few hours handcuffed at the precedent until Jessica had straightened the situation out.

Clint would say something about the weirdness of ninjas, but he had dealt with ninjas before, a group of them having tried to pin a murder on then mercenary Hawkeye. Which he had taken offense to, especially since it hadn’t been a clean death and you couldn’t have had worse aim if you had been shooting blind in a building full of exploding fireworks. It had lead to nearly a year of ninja attacks but had done his work and reputation a surprising amount of good. As it turned out, the mercenary community did not get along well with ninjas, or Samurai, though generally for entirely different reasons and he had started to discover just how bat shit crazy his world actually was.

For some reason Clint had always taken comfort in that fact, that no matter how insane his life got it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could be. He looked up as Natasha finally pulled herself away from mooning over Matt and entered the conversation, asking about the weapons and skill set of the ninjas. Then Matt started talking about it and it turned out that the ninjas that had come after them had also visited him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for updating on time on the proper day. :) Early on into the day even!  
> Happy new Year to all of those who are reading this, hopefully 2015 will be much better than 2014 was.  
> 

One of the things that Clint had been looking forward to the most as time went on was getting back to his work. Even with the constant care that Nicole needed, and his return to a training schedule as he finished shedding the baby fat he was far more inactive than he was used to.  
While he could wait days in one location for his target to arrive, this was a different situation entirely and he had found himself going just a bit stir crazy wanting to get back to doing something more than changing diapers.  
Which was why, all things considered, he found himself surprised to find himself having more trouble than he had thought he would leaving Nikki at the day care. He had anticipated some trouble, since he was definitely a protective dad, but he hadn’t imagined he’d be standing there, in the lobby of the daycare, unable to hand her over to the patiently waiting beta woman.  
The people in charge of the daycare, surrounded by toys and children and guns hidden behind panels in walls coded to DNA watched him in patient amusement and understanding. As Clint said goodbye to his daughter, sleeping in her car seat, handing diapers and bottles full of milk to the specialists. (Both child care specialists and specialized Agents) Harder to drive away and leave her there, with unfamiliar faces, even though he knew exactly how good the hands she was in were. He had ended up staying in the parking lot, staring at the building working up the strength to pull out and leave her for nearly five minutes before finally pulling away.  
It’s something that lingers with him throughout the day, even as he's met by Nat at the door, the scenarios of what could happen to his baby in unknown hands running in the back of his head as he gets into the training ring with her. Nobody, least of all himself is fooling themselves, even though he's kept himself in shape and continued to train, he's been out of the field for over a year, and it shows as Nat wipes the floor with him, before gently chiding him for allowing Nicole to distract him as much as it did. Cheerfully smacking him over the head a moment later when Clint pointed out the small bruise just under her collar and then asked if he got Matt if it would fit his mouth.  
The feeling that he had abandoned his daughter into the hands of complete strangers, and that he needed to rush over there to rescue her from whatever they were doing there, was worse when he had finished the morning's workout and assessment and got to the paperwork part of his day. His computer was a different one from the laptop that he had had before he left on leave, and there was the temptation to use it to hack into the security at the day care to make sure nothing is happening to her, only tempered with the knowledge that he would be caught after only a few minutes and be in more trouble than it was really worth.  
The only time that he’s able to push it to the back of his mind is when he’s at the range, for three hours going from fire arm to fire arm to prove that he can take his recertification test tomorrow without a problem. The instructor just watches as he fires in each of the targets, until a neat geometric shape forms into each one. A square, two triangles, a rectangle and with the long range rifle an octagon. When he finally gets to his arrows he moves from shapes to letters, spelling out words on different targets, just enjoying how nice it was to have his favorite bow in his hands again, instead of the commercially bought ones. It’s fun and drives the instructors there, who hate Clint since he had skipped over them when he first entered SHIELD then proved to them that he actually was the best, crazy.

Thankfully the range is time consuming, distracting and near the end of his day, the painfully long day that had dragged on without seeming to end. Once he's done there's only preparing to leave, and going through the security check ups. He can't take his laptop, though he wants to, still not cleared to move anything out of the building, which is annoying since he's got a mountain of work to go through still and he wants to get it finished as fast as possible.

Just like when he dropped her off that morning Nicole was still asleep. Since she had been fed and changed just under a half hour before he had arrived it wasn't surprising. Though he had tried to be careful picking her up, she still woke up, burbling and blinking sleepily at him before squirming a little and falling back asleep again.


	16. Chapter 16

Two weeks after he starts working again, four days after he’s recertified and can go back into the field, Clint has to use a sick day, for the first time in his life. Not because he was sick, no, but because Nicole was.  
It wasn’t that surprising, since the flu had hit her daycare, hard. But knowing what it wasn’t didn’t make it any easier. For Clint it was a nightmare, the most experience he had with being cared for when he was sick had been waking up in medical after breathing in poisonous gases while on assignment.  
The books, if they cover it, don’t really warn you about how you’re going to react when you find out that your kid is sick for the first time. Which, they really should since if you’re Clint there’s only one way to react. Which is poorly.  
He purposely avoided the memories of Barney telling him what he would do, the few times that Clint had gotten sick as a baby. Where Barney would have to hide with his little brother outside of the trailer to keep him away from their father. Who saw no compunction with beating a sick baby because it wouldn’t stop crying.  
He feels sick with fear, when he remembers it, scared that as soon as he stops paying attention he’ll do the exact same thing. Even as he cuddles her, rocking back and forth, promising Nicole that he’ll never hurt her.  
She resists his every attempt to help her and calm her down, she won't take milk and throws up the pedialyte that Clint gives her, he doesn't even think about Tylenlol since she's barely three months old. He does attempt to give her a lukewarm bath, which she needs anyways because she's been throwing up more than normal, which works, for a little while, until she vomits into the water and Clint has to pull her out then wipe her clean again. It’s such a relief, when she finally stops crying, or more accurately cries herself to sleep despite his best efforts. He lays her down in the crib and breaths a sigh of relief, at the sound of quiet, before he goes into the kitchen and makes himself some tea to help settle his nerves and then looks around at his apartment, sighing again.  
Though mostly clean, there were obvious signs of a sick baby scattered about, with vomit covered clothing to wash, and a bag with dirty diapers to throw out, plus of course, the mess in his bathroom, the vomit may be gone but that's not exactly disinfected yet. In short, he’s got things to do that having a sick baby wouldn’t let him get a pass on and he needed to get it done, preferably before she woke up. He took the hot water out of the microwave and placed it on the counter, putting a bag into it before moving around picking up bottles, dumping out the milk or pedialyte before rinsing and putting them into the dishwasher and heading into the bathroom with some disinfectant cleaner.  
He kept his ear out for the sound of Nicole coughing, or throwing up again, as he passes the door, finished in the bathroom, carrying the bag of trash from there with him into the kitchen. Before moving towards the laundry he took a sip of his rapidly cooling tea, stopping with the mug a bare inch from his mouth when she coughed. Clint’s entire body tensed as he anticipated Nicole to start screaming again, miserable with the flu as she whimpered slightly before settling back into sleep.  
It doesn’t take long to finish picking up the rest of the mess after the laundry, the big problem being that he has to leave Nikki alone in the apartment while he takes out the trash. Not that she wakes up, as he finishes and picks up his tea, still with the bag inside of it, but now long cold.  
Grimacing he tosses the bag out, gets out a glass and adds ice before turning the cold tea into iced tea and sits down, glad to be finally off his feet. Even as he picks up his laptop, taking out his hearing aids, sighing in relief, his ears starting to hurt from having them in for so long, turning the baby monitor so that he could see when she was making noise.  
Thankfully she is still sleeping as he stops and takes a break, both to check on her and her temperature which thank god is coming down, and to make himself something to eat before finishing the last of his paper work. Which mostly is to confirm his certification in the new air craft that SHIELD has come up with, when he gets a message from Fury, both asking how Nicole was doing and giving him his first field assignment, a cakewalk, going after some arms dealers that were beginning to dabble in biological warfare, and would be working with Mockingbird.  
He had to wonder about his boss’s sanity sometimes, since he was pairing Clint with his ex-girlfriend for his first assignment since Clint had given birth. It made sense though, with Natasha in Europe, and biological anything was Bobbi’s field, plus they had always worked well together. Before, during and after the complete and total meltdown of their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of Clint's reactions with his daughter are based off of myself and my experiences with caring for my son. Being a single parent is hard, being a single parent when your kid is sick for the first time and you have no support is it's own little ball of hell. Clint actually takes it better than I did, I do admit that, and I had some support.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter.   
> I haven't been able to keep up with AOS so I don't know what's canon there. But in the comics Mockingbird is a Biologist. I know that's not a Virologist but she's also a genius I figured she's got a diploma for that as well somewhere.

The mission, when it happened was almost scrubbed. They had come to the mostly hidden lab expecting to find only a few people, the scientists and a few guards, still in the negotiations stage of finding a buyer for their virus. The analysts had believed that they still had two days before they and the group that were interested in it came to an agreement.  
Only as they discovered too late, the sell that they had been expecting to go down soon was the very next day. Which meant that instead of the skeleton crew that they had been expecting, the lab was practically crawling in guards, much to their annoyance.  
Clint and Bobbi studied it for a long minute, listening to their handler ask if they believed that they should cancel the op. Allow a bunch of crazies that idolized fucking HYDRA of all things to get their hands on a biological weapon or to adapt and overcome. They both know the answer to that question, the same as Mitchell on the other end of their ear piece. It was more of a question of how to proceed than should they or not. 

It’s Bobbi who comes up with the idea, to go along with the original plan, but also letting it be sold, to allow them to attempt to use the useless pathogen. It means that Clint will have to go in also, instead of allowing Bobbi to take in one of his computer viruses to wipe out everything. Both of them were, by necessity computer literate, but both knew that Mockingbird's ability tended to end in something being smashed rather than deleted. Hawkeye wasn't a Stark, definitely wasn't JARVIS, but he was better than most, keeping up with the techs at SHIELD.   
The logistics, beyond that are easy, infiltration they can both do, though Clint acknowledges that Mockingbird is the better at it. So he simply follows her as she moves through the place, concentrating on behind them as she moves them forward, not able to be spotted by the guards if they actually wanted the thing to be sold. It makes things both more difficult and easier at the same time. Difficult because it takes longer and they cannot simply kill or disable those who they meet. Easier because fighting their way through a bunch of guards was a pain in the ass even for somebody like Natasha, especially when they had arrived expecting less than half the number of people there.

 

It doesn’t take long for them to separate, Hawkeye towards the computers and Bobbi towards the section that held the pathogen. He’s sure that she’ll reach her destination earlier, despite being a bit further way, as Clint also had to avoid two men who were moving through the halls. Just as he's sure that she'll need more time to complete her mission since she had to go through the clean room and put on a hazmat suit. By the time that he gets there and finishes rerouting the security cameras Bobbi was already in the pathogen room, in the bright orange suit just out of sight of the camera waiting for Hawkeye's signal to enter.  
Rewriting the data was surprisingly easy, thanks to paranoid, stupid, arms dealers who didn’t keep hard copies, not even written notes on the subject. Hawkeye wished that they would all be that easy to do, as he typed burned through the data, watching the cameras and the movements of the people there in case any of them came near to where Bobbi was as she reported that she was finished and heading back. Mentally ticking down the time she would need to go through the clean room as he finished covering her tracks on the camera and looped the measuring instruments so that they registered that everything was exactly the same as it was, before Mockingbird had destroyed the virus. He warned her, before she left though, of the guards moving through the hall her room was connected to, before watching her leave behind them. Setting the cameras back to normal and resetting the time on them. Doing with the other security cameras, using the estimated time that it would take for them to leave before heading out himself.

Mockingbird smiled at him for a second, as he joined her, nearly a quarter mile outside of the lab, as the sun began to rise above the horizon. The two of them starting to talk about the episode of Supernatural that had aired the night before, and how likely it was that Sam was going to be possessed by the devil before the end of the season. Both agreed that it was going to happen, with Sam's history of bad decisions with demons, the how and when was the big question. It's a conversation that they kept up, right up until they were picked up, switching towards breakfast and how much Clint had missed being with Nicole, now that she was sleeping through most of the night.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to write, edit and update a chapter on your phone, while walking, difficult. Trying to do that while walking on the snow and ice extremely difficult. Trying to do that while wearing gloves to keep your fingers from freezing off is an exercise in futility.  
> I currently cannot feel my fingers and only the sight of them reassures me that they are in fact still there.  
> I can't wait until I get a new computer.

Clint was waiting for his flight back to New York, when he got news that he was to fly Coulson to Malibu, then Songbird in New York City. His eyebrow raised slightly at the tone the director used, it was the same one that he had when Clint had brought in Natasha, irritated at the situation he was dealing with but already seeing potential. It made him wonder what was going on as he stood and put his book into his jacket pocket, moving towards the airbay and the craft he had been designated. One of the newer ones that R&D had developed that was half helicopter half jet and could get around the world in less than an hour.  
Clint was one of maybe fifteen people that could fly them, gaining certification while he had been pregnant. A big part of the hold up was just because in order to be certified you had to be able to fly both planes, helicopters, then had a good understanding of what exactly was powering the damned thing, since it wasn’t jet fuel. Jet fuel would have been burnt through in about fifteen minutes if they were to try and go full speed on the thing.  
He was just beginning his pre flight check- these were too new to not go over before any flight for a potential problem. When Melissa joined him, standing in the background, watching him move to check the engines as he did.  
"How's Nicole doing?" She asked eventually as he moved to inspect the other side of the plane.  
"She's good. Sleeping through most of the night now." Clint had been in torture scenarios where he had gotten more sleep than when Nicole was a newborn. He suspected that the reason she was asking had less to do with wanting to know about his daughter. Melissa tended to get to the point fast though, so he wouldn't have to wait long.  
"There's some rumors being started about her." Clint carefully didn’t tense up or move away from what he was doing, going over the fans in the right wing.  
“They’re saying that she’s the daughter of the black widow.” Relief flooded through him, rumors about his and Nat’s relationship had been swirling since she had joined SHIELD. None of which had been true, he had no interest in the female half of the species. He looked over the engine of the plane at her, his face must have said something about his amusement because she shrugged with a grin.  
“They’re also trying to imply that Nicole is super-human somehow because obviously the widow must be.” And that was it then. People were always trying to recreate the stuff that had created Captain America, why Clint had always wondered since the same damned thing had also created the Red Skull.  
“We ran a DNA test when Nicole was born, standard procedure.” Clint wasn’t lying, they had. To try and see if they could find the Soldier’s DNA in any system in the world. It was a long shot that none of them were surprised when it hadn’t paid off. They had also made sure to tie it into the ‘designated alpha’ that had ‘serviced’ Clint and given up all custodial rights to Nicole.  
“She’s one hundred percent human.” She didn’t even have the gene that created mutants, which had been a bit of a surprise, as the Soldier was said to be active since just after World War 2. Clint and Natasha had already covered for the possibly of somebody with a grudge, but he was still grateful to Songbird for the information.  
Her self imposed task of warning her friend of a potential problem discharged she brightened suddenly and leaned against the hull as Clint finished his check.  
“Have you checked Youtube lately?” Clint snickered, and nodded. SHIELD, like every other agency under the sun, had agents with their own youtube channels. While most of the stuff was completely innocent, like every other group out there they had those who enjoyed putting their coworkers mishaps on the international scene.  
Two weeks ago Clint had been on his own channel, (part of his cover as an archery teacher) when he had found the heavily edited video that Songbird had made of him. It didn’t have any sound, due to the excuse of them being cameras placed in trees to keep them safe, but really it had been her snickering the entire time that they had needed to remove.  
Clint had snickered through the video and cackled at the comments underneath it, covering his mouth to keep from waking Nicole.  
“That wasn’t you was it?” He asked walking into the plane as Coulson started to walk towards them, as unruffled as normal.  
“I wish, but no. “ She gave the other a small wave as she sat down. "I suspect it was Mockingbird myself." That was very possible, it was the sort of thing Mockingbird enjoyed doing.  
“Hey Coulson.” Clint greeted him as he flipped the switch to shut and seal the door to the plane, continuing to talk with the air traffic controller as he finished his pre-flight check and assured himself that the systems were working safely and got the all clear for take off.  
“So what’s so important in Malibu that the Director is sending you in anyways?” It wasn’t like there was much in Malibu.  
“Tony Stark was found alive thirty minutes ago.” Songbird looked up and then back at Coulson, surprise on her face.  
“That would do it. What did he do, blow up whoever was holding him?”  
“The initial reports say that’s exactly what he did.” Clint snorted as he cleared the air from around the helicarrier.  
“From all accounts, the guy probably did it in some crazy way that only he could manage to get to work.” Coulson was probably like a kid in a candy store, being able to get his hands on Stark and interrogate him on the business practices of the company, practices that had only gotten worse since the man’s apparent death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A side note, asked to me by the friend who was watching me edit this chapter over my shoulder while trying to help my fingers from freezing. (I'm convinced his keeping the bitterly cold wind off is the reason I have my fingers)  
> Clint, who is attracted only to Male Alphas is considered straight for this universe.  
> Matt, who is attracted to female alphas and female omegas is bisexual.  
> Jessica and Luke who are attracted to Male Alphas (Jessica) and Female Omegas (Luke) exclusively are considered a gay couple.  
> Natasha, who's attracted to the entire spectrum is Pansexual.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed last week's update for one single, very stupid reason. I forgot it was Friday. I actually didn't realize that Friday had passed me by until Sunday.
> 
> I almost did it again this week, which is why this is updating at 3 am Saturday.
> 
> Edit- I just realized, at work, trying not to get myself killed on the ice that it is, in fact 4:30 am Friday morning.

The rest of the year could be compared to a train hitting a small car at full speed. Sure the train wasn't scratched, but the car was totaled. It was a mess of missions, diapers, and a social life that it sometimes seemed like he had despite himself and Tony Fucking Stark.  
Tony Stark who was Iron Man, a superhero. Whose heroics were giving those left in his wake migraines and the poor analysts who had to figure out what would happen after Hurricane Stark left ulcers. If it hadn't amused Coulson as much as it did to have him announce that he was Iron Man he was sure that Phil would have been up there with those frustrated by his antics.  
Not that Clint minded that much, sure the man had interfered with two of his missions, but the outcome had turned out better than had he not shown up and the man was so consumed with what he was doing that he never noticed the archer that was watching him. He was sure that it was a flaw on the man's targeting system, it didn't recognize Clint's bow as a threat and thus didn't register Clint as one. Watching him Clint got to watch that suit of his, sure that the one that the man was wearing on the second time that he interfered was a different one than the first. Confirmed when he had gotten back by the analysts, still had the same two flaws and Clint got a bit of a kick from knowing that he could take Stark out if he really wanted to.  
Not that he wanted to, so far Clint had only benefited from the man, even when he interfered, plus he got to go home early, always welcome. Clint had a soft spot for the man anyways, he had ever since he had come back ad announced that his company was stopping weapons productions. Clint had, much to the horror of his accountant, bought up a great many of the stocks as previous investors fled, then had cackled his way to the bank when the company had come out with it's most profitable year ever. He had sold half of the stocks he had bought that day at nearly a thousand percent profit and created a trust fund for Nicole, for her college, so that if and when she went she wouldn't have to worry about the crippling debts that students were facing.  
Which was part of the reason why he had agreed with Coulson and Natasha, against recommending that they tried to take the Iron Man suit away from Stark. Compiling a list as long as Clint's arm for why it was a bad idea, destined to fail. SHIELD had been the only agency or organization, in the year that followed that hadn't, their reasons for arguing against it coming true, more so as they began to predict that Stern, paranoid who had a history of trying to gain any cutting or bleeding age technology for himself began to show interest in the suit.

It was due to Stark that Clint was able to take out Nicole for trick or treating, probably the first time since he was only a little bit older than her that he had celebrated a holiday. He had dressed her up as Robin Hood, sans hat because she refused to wear it, and himself as the ever faithful companion Little John. They had gone from house to house where she had soaked up the attention given to her by random strangers as part of her due until finally falling asleep just after an hour.

Just over a week after Halloween, his heat started, not unexpectedly, since he hadn't gone back onto the pill while he was still breast feasting, but as Nicole was starting to eat solid food it had only been a matter of time. Thankfully he was still unbonded, so instead of the all consuming need of a bonded heat to breed, or the hellpit of a chemically forced heat, an unbonded one was just miserable, wanting and putting out 'I'm available' pheromones even when the last thing that he wanted was some alpha sniffing around him. Most Unbonded omegas took heat leave and slept through most of it with the help of sleeping pills.  
Which is why had arranged Natasha to watch over her long before he actually started a heat. She had been delighted to spend two days with her goddaughter, and had picked her up already with the intention of spoiling her rotten.  
Clint leaned against the door as his best friend left with his daughter, groaning as he thumped his head against the wood. This was even worse than being separated because of work, at least with work he was both distracted and doing something useful. This though, he couldn't even sleep it away because his doctors wanted to ensure that there had been no permanent damage to his reproductive system from the drugs. While, before he simply would have picked up a random Alpha, using the heat as an excuse for great and meaningless sex, the thought of doing it now made him panic, hell just having to go into heat and nearly caused him to vomit.

Pushing himself off the doors he walked into his bedroom and pulled the sheets off of the bed, replacing them with the cheap ones designed with heats in mind. He also pulled out his box of toys and checked them over before shaking his head at the fine layer of dust that had settled over them and walked into the kitchen, lining them up in the dishwasher, next to Nicole's bottles and his cups before starting it. Washing the vibrators by hand, ignoring how empty it felt without Nicole there. Once he was finished there was nothing left to do, but make dinner and wait for his heat to start. 

He’s just finished eating when he starts to feel the first signs that he was cycling into his heat. He swallows his groan as he got up to wash his dishes, placing them to dry next to his pan before making peppermint tea to help with his stomach and a heating pad for the cramp that would also be starting soon for a few hours before he moved into his proper heat. Sitting down he flipped through the channels before deciding on a cheesy black and white horror movie, watching it until he headed to his bed.

When Clint woke up, it seemed like he had just shut his eyes but the sun was just rising over the horizon. The thrum of arousal had been replaced by a liquid fire that was working it’s way through his veins. Covering his eyes with a moan as he shifted and felt him soaked clothing between his legs. Wiggling out of them and throwing them onto the floor next to the bed he reached over and grabbed the largest of his vibrators, placed next to his bed and moved to slide it inside of him. The large toy was just pressing against him when he stopped, a old fear entering his mind as he froze, wondering if having it inside of him would bring back memories. Most of them had never been recovered, destroyed by the drugs that had gone into his system and triggered his heat. But if there was ever a situation likely to trigger the return of memories this was it, especially since he hadn’t had, or wanted to have, sex since that night.  
After a second he pushed it out of his mind and began to slowly ease it inside of him, breathing a side of relief when it was fully seated with him and all he felt was a sense of relief and a thrum of need. Turning on the toy inside of him he moaned softly as it began to vibrate as he moved his hips and slide it in and out of himself. Picking up his tempo as pleasure washed through him and his need began to be slaked. He began to thrust it into him in earnest until he finally came, clenching the toy as cum splattered his chest and bedsheets, trying to pull it deeper inside of himself as he caught his breath. Clint wiped the cum off himself with one of the wipes he had placed on his bedside table for that purpose then shifted, moaned again and shifted his position so that he was on his knees, his dick rubbing against the bed as he began to move the toy in and out of himself again.

This went on for the next several hours until finally after noon the fire in his veins calmed down and he was able to slide out his toy and replace it with a plug, satisfied with it’s feel and weight inside of him as he climbed into the shower and washed his cum off himself, stopping as he washed out his hair to stroke himself and shift the plug inside of him until he came again then washed his body.  
He managed to get a small breakfast after his shower before need began to move through him again and he hit his head against the counter, shifting in his seat to move the plug inside of him. Clint was going to be so grateful when this heat was over and he could clean up everything, get his daughter back and could get back to work. After airing this place out, it had only been a few hours since his heat had started and it had yet to reach it’s peak- he figured it would around tomorrow- and it already smelled of sex.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead yet, just very scatterbrained. This update is brought to you via an alarm on my phone.

Fall moved quickly into Winter after his heat ended, the cold of night spreading into the day. Holidays not as important to the Barton family passing by in a haze of snow storms and assignments. Firsts for Nicole were more important, the first time she crawled, the first time she spoke отец recorded and treasured.   
She took her first steps as winter gave way to spring followed far too soon after with her first time being pulled off the bookshelves that she had been trying to climb. It also marked the discovery that Tony Stark was dying, then soon after rumors began that he was going to open the Stark Expo again. The two events far too close together to be anything other than a coincidence.   
Soon after Natasha finished her assignment and was reassigned to keep watch over Stark in case he did anything particularly stupid while looking for a cure there was another sighting of the giant green man that had appeared two years before. The same one that the army had tried to get Clint to deal with when it had first been created in Banner’s accident. His position in SHIELD had kept him safely out of Ross’s reach, which Clint had been grateful for, the man was the combination of determination and lack of morality that Clint mostly saw from behind his bow.  
Thankfully it turned out to be nothing, a rumor in South America started by rebels there, that nobody could verify. Clint was grateful for it, because it would have meant that he would have been sent there, and he didn’t want to deal with the ‘least jolly green man in existence’ and a petty dictator in his realm.

 

Clint had been worried about missing Nicole’s birthday, until the situation had changed after the warlord that they had been keeping an eye on had been shot in the head by his mistress. She had managed, somehow, to make it to safety and Phil had mentioned as Clint left HQ that they were planning to bring the 14 year old girl to the US.  
He lived in fear of what Natasha, bound and determined to spoil her rotten, had gotten his daughter. He had worked himself into half believing that she had gotten the one year old a pony, even being fairly sure that at least half of it had been her winding him up, but she was very good at it and it had been working. Clint didn’t know if he should buy a stable somewhere, start laughing, or take his daughter and flee the city.  
Either way he still had to prepare the larger of the two cakes. The first, a small one the size of about 3 cupcakes was already made, a small thing meant to be played with by the small child who would no doubt smear most of it all over herself more than eat it.   
The large one was for the people who would be coming, Clint’s friends who all adored the little girl. He’d decided on half and half cake, with chocolate and vanilla. It was fun, and better than store bought cakes, which had a tendency to turn your shit weird colors. You only needed to poop orange once in medical to get examinations that were entirely too invasive for anybody that you weren’t in a long term relationship with.

The birthday girl helped with the cooking, in that she sits there on the countertop next to him and drinks milk while asking him what he’s doing. At least before she gets bored and demands to be let down, wandering off to play with her toys. Once he’s finished putting it into the oven he goes to see what she’s doing, only to be shooed away when he picks up one of her blocks, being told that they are hers and that she was building. He didn’t know what she was building only that it seemed to require intense concentration and that all the blue blocks were completely unnecessary.   
Sitting down Clint turned on the weather channel and watched her building teeter to one side then topple over. To his daughter’s indignation before she began to rebuild, apparently annoyed because it wasn’t supposed to fall over. 

Nicole is far more interested in the icing attempting to stick her finger into it to lick off the stuff from it. He lets her get away with it the first time, because her hands are clean and just washed, but stops her from doing it again, wiggling his finger at her. She gets far less interested in the process of icing the cake when she realizes that he’s not going to let her have any more and moved off to find something more interesting to do.

He’s just finished cleaning up Nicole of the icing that she had gotten into while he had been changing his shirt into one clean of flour, trying to get her into a diaper when Natasha walks in, carrying a small stack of presents and with Matt following behind her. Or more accurately, they walk in to find Nicole running away from Clint without any clothes on, or a diaper, her hair still wet from her bath, with Clint chasing after her carrying the diaper and her blue dress. Natasha, evil woman that she was, shifted the presents and took a picture on her phone of the scene. Even Matt is laughing at him as he finally catches Nicole and carries her back into her room, asking politely if he needed help before Clint waved him off and Natasha dragged him into the kitchen to snoop at the cake.

Clint and Nicole are far more presentable when they come out again, to find Natasha and Matt making out in the middle of his kitchen. Breaking them up with a roll of his eyes as he walks in, Nicole on his hip, he handed the little girl to her Тетя Nat when she leans towards the red head and starts gesturing. The two of them immediately starting to play peek a boo as Matt asks if Clint has made Chocolate or Vanilla cake because he smells both. His eyebrow raising when Clint had answered both, then nodded and asked if he could have it from the middle, to get both flavors. Which, yeah he can do.

It doesn’t take long after that for the others who had insisted on coming to celebrate her birthday, and it’s just like his life that he has no control over this sort of thing, start to arrive, first the Cages carrying what is probably not clothes. Then Phil, with Maria’s gift on top of his own, Danny coming in just behind him with a smile and a brightly colored envelope in his hands. Last is director Fury, looking as though he had just come off the Helicarrier, which it’s very likely he had, using one of the prototype (Been a prototype since WW2) flying cars.   
Clint, if he tried hard enough, could probably get one, might have before if he didn’t have a daughter now and those things aren’t exactly safe. There is a great deal of irony in that one thought, and none of it is lost on the assassin.

He’s carrying the largest of the gifts, Clint is almost scared to think of what he’s got, because if anybody is going to be more likely to spoil Nicole than Tasha, it’s her namesake. His namesake who starts bouncing when she sees him and holding up her arms to be held. Which he does with only a bit of reluctance after taking off his coat. There’s far too many people who would swear on their soul that the scene that Clint was looking at, also maybe taking a picture of, would never happen.

It’s funny because as soon as everybody is settled, with a drink, they get into a conversation about movies, and how much putting a message into a movie sucks. Or as Nick put it, he’s there to be entertained, not suffer through an hour and a half lesson on why they should be better people in one way or another. He gets enough of that in real life, more than enough to not deal with it when he’s in a darkened movie theater anticipating somebody’s head getting decapitated by a chainsaw or set on fire in an interesting manner.  
They point out that there’s a new spy movie that is supposed to be out, but nobody who actually is a spy actually goes to watch spy movies at the theater. Mostly because they can’t help but yell and point out inaccuracies and cheerfully mock it. Politics are a non starter, because none of the people that Clint, or he himself are willing to discuss, especially since far too often they end up having to step in when politics got too bloody for anybody’s good.

It makes for an interesting evening, with discussions on law, ballet, boxing stats dominating it as they cut and eat cake. Jessica ends it though, telling Danny how Clint has never missed anything the entire time that she had known him as Nicole is, slowly, opening up her next present, one of natasha’s- a toy horse. She’s far more interested in the box that Nick had brought her, a giant box, for a small present that she had immediately climbed inside with the wrapping paper it had come in to discover the bubble wrap tossed carelessly inside. His actual gift was a set of toys that light up and moved around on their own while making noises. Clint wants to glare a hole into the man’s head, but he’s still Clint’s boss.   
Everybody who watches it agrees that it is totally unfair that they were being upstaged by a box and bubble wrap before laughing and agreeing that it was also pure genius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> отец - Russian for Father  
> Тетя - Russian for Aunt
> 
> Translations are from Google, and if I got them wrong, feel not only free, but encouraged to correct me.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started updating yesterday, then remembered Daredevil and forgot everything else. So updating late, because 'marathoning episodes' isn't a good reason.  
> Updating from my phone at work, like what seems to be normal for me of late.

The Stark Expo opens up when Clint is in a different country, sleet pelleting him as he tries to keep his ass from freezing off while he waits for his target to walk out of their apartment building. It’s also when they finally figure out what the puzzle work that’s starting to develop on Stark’s chest is, the reactor that he has stuck in his body is apparently, totally safe for use, it’s the element that he uses that’s the problem. It’s leeching poison into his system, to Clint’s understanding at least, there’s bitter irony there, but nobody at SHIELD points it out.

It’s not Clint’s problem though, it is going to be Nat’s soon from what Clint’s heard, that they’re going to be sending her in to monitor him. Try and keep the world’s only public ‘super hero’ from doing anything too stupid because he doesn’t have that long to live. The only thing Clint thinks about as he finally sees movement from the building is that the asshole had better not do anything to cause the stocks in his company to drop. Clint owns a good chunk of the shares to that company, through various names and alias, even his own name, and he’s not about to take losing money due to the CEO going on a bender for a near death experience or whatever sitting down.

Of course if he wants do something smart before he dies and appoints Pepper Potts as CEO, that’s something else entirely. Pepper Potts as CEO is something that he can get behind, anybody that Phil respects in both a personal and professional life is somebody he can get behind. Even if Phil also respects Stark both personally and professionally, which the latter he can see, but the former… well everybody makes some mistake at some point in time.  
He’s dismissing that thought out of his mind when he finally sees the target, the head of a human trafficking ring that had started to branch out into other operations, by using his victims, alive or dead, as mules.  
It, in and of itself, won’t do much good, he’ll be replaced before the end of the year, but they’re also going to use the chaos to rescue his victims as well as pin the death on one of his rivals. Easy enough to do since most of the world thinks that Clint is still a gun for hire, with a long standing contract for SHIELD. It’s not uncommon, SHIELD does it with a couple of assassins, scientists, and others. It’s a world built on reputation and Clint’s is impeccable, he still gets offers, every now and then. He sends them on to SHIELD, carries out a few of them and the cash mostly goes to charity. 

He’s already moving from his position when realization blooms on the faces of the people around him, and his arm candy girlfriend starts to scream and back away. Clint has taken off his soaked outer layer of clothing, using the folded rigid pieces of his bow to create a pack and slung it over his shoulder before the door to the elevator opens and he’s pulled out of it by the bodyguards. They immediately start screaming in his face, which is useless since his hearing aids are about thirty miles away, even as they empty out the newly created pack. Widening his eyes Clint does his best to look like a terrified random citizen, gesturing in sign language before he was shoved away. It is entirely too easy to use his disability to get away with murder, and the number of people who fall for it makes his head hurt. Even as he cheerfully exploits it.

When he’s away and in the safe house, with a fire going Clint peels the gloves off his hands and takes in the coloration of his still freezing fingers. Clint’s fairly sure that they’re going to start hurting, once they’re warmed up enough as he holds them closer to the fire. But it’s not like he’s going to be there long, only a few hours and then he’ll be picked up for his flight home to New York. If he’s lucky and the debrief is short he’ll be able to get to the daycare before midnight in New York time to pick up Nikki. He had plans for tomorrow, to take her to the New York Aquarium. She spent the day before he had left watching animal planet that was having some kind of marine life day. She not refused to allowe him to turn the channel and yelling "fish!" at the screen in both English and Russian.  
The daycare when he called reported that she had spent all day with the fish toys and staring at the goldfish there.

A plane was waiting for him at the airport when he arrives along with his two supporting agents, without a pilot but they don't need one with Clint, who's certified in nearly everything man made in the air. It's a skill that he had learned after getting into a plane Indiana Jones style and using inaccurate memories of action movies to find it's guns. It hadn’t worked, but random pushing of buttons had eventually discovered them.  
He learned how to fly after that, since he had ended up popping the ejector seat to get out of the damned thing and broken a leg and four of his ribs.   
He can still remember how surprised Fury had been, when they had first met, and Clint had stolen a helicopter. He had just been certified in commercial jets, training for it while he was pregnant, just because it was there. Though it was nice to know that if any other options don’t pan out he can always get a job with Pacific Air or something.  
The flight home is easy, quiet even, with most of the people aboard asleep, the only noise that of the engines and the air rushing past them. If Clint hadn’t been flying the plane he probably would have slept to it, technically he could put it on autopilot and still slept through it, but it’s safer this way. They just got off a mission and sometimes they were surprised by just who these people had connections with.  
Clint had once shot a low level arms dealer and had ended up being chased by a tank. There is no scenario where a guy who sold assault rifles to street thugs would have ended up with a tank. He still didn’t know what the fuck had gone on that day, since the damned thing had literally appeared out of nowhere, and he wants to blame Nick Fury for it, but he wouldn’t meet the man for another six months. So, no autopilot for Clint.

It has already gotten dark by the time that they reach the helicarrier, but the debriefing was blissfully short, taken while he gets a medical examination for possible frost bite. He’s allowed to leave even earlier than he had expected, reaching the daycare just before 11pm. Nicole is of course, asleep, and stays that way as Clint picks her up carefully and carries her to his car. She stirs briefly, as the car starts and as they pull out of the parking lot, but that is all.   
He still has a report to write, and he’s going to, after he checks her diaper again, and then puts her to bed then make a small dinner for himself. Probably pull something from the freezer that he had made a while ago just for nights like this when he’s suffering from exhaustion not just from jet lag but from the mission also.   
He’s mostly through the first part of his report, when he learns that Carol is headed towards South America, when he gets the call. That the winter soldier had been spotted in upstate new york.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next update will have the first of the POV changes. And a short appearance of TWS.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't get this up before now, there were irl problems to be dealt with.

The soldier felt cold, not abnormally so, not for him. It's one of the few memories that he has, cold, pain, and the mission his masters give him.   
It doesn't matter to him what or who his mission is, it just matters that he accomplishes them. It hurts less if he accomplishes them, he doesn’t remember much, but he remembers that, the agony that happens after a failed mission.   
Still as he sits there, waiting for his orders he tries to remember before the latest time that he had been awakened. He knows that this wasn't his first time, the same way that he knows how to fire his gun, use his knife or eat. He thinks that his hair might be longer than the last time, that the man in front of him is different.   
He doesn't know why or how he knows this though. The same way that he doesn't know why he looks for somebody, and why nobody is the person that he’s searching for. Just like he knows that there was a scent from somebody else, that there was something connected to it that he needed to remember. 

He wished that those two things would stop coming back to him, swimming to the forefront of his mind as time passed. 

It doesn't matter though, as his current handler walks into his room and shows him his target. Tells him what they need of him, how they want his target to be disposed of. They give him the information that he needs and he eats while they transport him. It’s a cold, tasteless meal, which the soldier knows that it's not right, that food should have flavor, but he doesn't know what flavor is.  
It's the same way that he knows that he can't sleep, because if he sleeps then he'll miss it. Miss what he doesn't know but he will. 

They reach their destination in only a few hours, a shorter amount of time than normal. It's long enough for some of the cold that covers him to leave, even if he doesn't notice, his mind taking in factors and dismissing unnecessary distractions.   
They drop him off near the targets known location, and the first thing he sees is a security camera, hidden slightly out of the way in the gas station across the street. The station is empty but the camera moves as the vehicle with his handlers moves out of his sight.   
He doesn't know why they would make such a decision but it doesn't matter, removing the footage from where it was stored will be the easiest part of his mission, as long as it is not also sent to an online site where it would most likely be picked up by one of the enemies of his masters.   
That is not part of his mission, his mission is to eliminate the target and the witnesses. The building is a small warehouse with an office space above, with two entrances. The smaller in the front easily blocked with a hotwired car. 

It's easy enough to enter into the building without being noticed, the office space above providing both view and cover. The broken glass in one of the windows an easy exit. There is more people than he had been told about, seven bodyguards and not five, with five workers including the target. He rewrites the plan in his head, taking in the new numbers and their positions. It will not be much more difficult, the workers will run, two guards will be killed with the target. The other five will be trickier but he can only see handguns which will not be able to penetrate his armor, it will only be his head he has to worry about.

He waits for the target to walk into view, still screaming at workers to move faster. Followed by the two bodyguards, he is still shouting mid word as the bullet hits him in his head, his blood and brain matter splattering his guards who fall seconds behind also dead. 

For a moment all activity but for the soldier ceases, staring in shock at the corpse is now lying on the floor. As expected the workers run, two to the blocked door and three for the other one, he picks up the three bodyguards run towards the stairs for the office.   
The soldier jumps down, just before they reach the small landing, shooting through the wall into empty air.   
He kills the next of the guards when they look down into the darkened stacks of boxes. Pulling back as bullets are fired wildly downwards, moving through the rows before climbing on top again, watching as the guards separate and move through the boxes, shouting at one another.   
It only makes it easier for him to find them, it also makes it easier to deal with the workers. Stabbing one while holding his mouth to cut of his scream and slitting the other's throat. He deals with the next guard the same way, the last three move together as the find the corpses.   
It only makes them easier to shoot.   
The clean up is easy, he moves things around as he had been ordered, shooting the target twice more. Afterwards it's only the gas station cameras to deal with, the feed stored in a computer and easily removed. There is also indications that it goes into an online site. The soldier has to wonder as he indicates that he has finished if they will send him to finish the clean up, and if it would take long enough for the cold to go away, if he’ll remember this when he awakens next.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is both truly terrible, and the greatest thing I've ever written. Just because it GOT written, despite everything.  
> In other news- I might be able to get a new computer within the next month or so (I'm not holding my breath, the universe has it out for me) after nearly a year of being deprived.  
> This means two things, that I'll be able to stop risking my life with every chapter trying to walk and write at the same time.  
> More importantly that I'll be able to update more regularly, with hopefully, better writing when I don't have to keep looking up to see if I'm about to walk into a pole. (yes I did walk into a pole while trying to edit this.)

They keep him awake, for nearly four days, it’s two missions, three training sessions and ten meals. There’s something strange about being able to remember that many days; that many missions. He doesn’t know why it’s strange but it is, he has the feeling that it’s going to end soon. His next mission takes the longest to reach and is the most difficult, he sleeps on the way there, and wakes up half way there, when the plane hits some turbulence. There's a brief moment of panic, the feeling that he's falling which terrifies him and he jerks up before sitting back down, taking in the setting again. 

The target was being protected by a red headed woman, who was good, he had almost lost them at one point, but managed to find them again almost by accident. It takes a bit of improvisation, his handlers wouldn’t be happy for it, but he gets them over a cliff. Only to look over it to see them still alive, the woman climbing out of the car, pulling the target behind her. There was a brief thought that she was a very determined woman, that at one point that determination might have meant something other an obstacle.  
He’s puzzled over that thought, wondering what it would have been, where that random thought had come from even as he moved to finish his mission. The woman would be exhausted and unable to put up a capable defense.  
He’s right, of course, he’s still far away when he sees them, the woman covering him as she hustles them away to safety. The calculations are easy to make, the shot, easier, it goes through her stomach and into the mark’s head. 

Later, he’ll be punished, for allowing her to live. They’ll refer to the woman as a kind of spider, and ask why he didn’t remove her as well. He’ll watch them pace for a moment, trying to understand why before giving them the answer that it wasn’t in his mission parameters. They’ll speak for a while, around him, it’s about him, but it doesn’t matter, they don’t give him an order or another mission.  
They show him a picture, eventually and ask him a question, he glances at it, then stares, not at the woman, the one that had been protecting the mark, but at the man standing next to her.  
He’s holding a bow with a quiver on his back, there’s a smile on his face as he looks to something to the right.  
He’s not familiar to the soldier, but the bow is. He has a small memory of pain, not the sort that he’s used to, it’s the sort that caused his entire body to seize. There’s also a scent, which he can’t place, but that is normal, scents tend to linger, from one frozen sleep to the next, or even several depending on how long he was awake.  
This one is different though, he feels… something, as he remembers the scent. He doesn’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel good. When he answers the question they take away the photograph, he almost asks about the bow and the scent, but they weren’t part of the mission thus do not matter.  
Instead he sits there, and waits, until they lead him to a chair, and they push him back, as he braces himself for the pain, for the loss of his memories, for the loss of his mission. Tries to remind himself that they don't matter, the pain will eventually leave, his memories are unnecessary and that he will be given a new mission when he wakes up again, then the first jolt of electricity begins to burn through him and he can't think of anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will switch back to Clint's PoV.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been up two weeks ago, but then SCOTUS made it's ruling and I got engaged.  
> Then last friday I got married.  
> So, it gets to go up today.

The months that followed after the winter soldier's sighting in New York, the slaughter there, and then his shooting of Natasha, had been the most nerve wracking of Clint's life. He’s including his worst missions, that time that he had found himself surrounded by giant, blind, spiders, and when he had first woken up after losing his hearing.  
He was terrified that if he shut his eyes, or turned his back on Nikki, that the Winter Solider would show up. That he would take his daughter and spirit her away to wherever he goes when he’s not working. That Clint would never see her again, it had been enough that he had nightmares about that.  
He tried not to show it, so that Nikki was unaware of just how scared he was, that he might lose her. Clint knew he didn't fool anybody that actually knew him, other than his daughter. He knew that it was no coincidence that the Cages, Rand and Murdock were around more often. To 'check up on him' while Natasha was gone, on her new assignment to watch Stark three months back. He could see how they wanted to ask him what had him so on edge, but they didn’t, probably knowing he wouldn’t, couldn’t answer, which just proves that he has the best friends ever.

God knew how Natasha had gotten back for Nikki's second birthday, but she had, appearing out of nowhere the day before the birthday to Nicole’s glee and leaving the day afterwards, on the way to Monte Carlo. Clint doesn’t even want to know how Natasha got Stark and Potts to stop over in New York City on their way to Monaco, but he’s grateful for it. So it Matt, which absolutely nobody around them mentions, even if from their slightly disheveled look just before the birthday party and before she leaves gives no doubt to what THEY’VE been doing the entire time that she’s been there.

Still, the trip to New Mexico, a day after Stark has a meltdown (Clint is going to kill him, god knows what it's going to do to his stocks) and less than a day before a hammer fell from the sky was such a relief for his fraying nerves. It was considered safe enough that he could take Nikki with him and far enough away that he didn't have to worry about his daughter being snatched every second of every day. His small group of friends shoo him off with smiles and relief, seeing how much Clint needed this working vacation and happy to help him off.

The biggest problem with driving there the rest of the way from Phoenix was that they were in the middle of potty training. Far enough along that she could now wear underwear, but not far enough that they didn't have to stop immediately if she needed to go.  
It made the car ride difficult, though stopping at a gas station, with an area cordoned off with police tape and a nervous cashier. The entire place was covered in flour and he saw Coulson's handiwork in the footprints, blood, buck shot and gunpowder residue in the flour dust on the floor.  
The cashier had been nervous, until she seen the little girl doing the potty dance and let him by, the same little girl glaring at him when he had tried to follow because ‘boys weren’t allowed in the girls bathroom dad’. Clint saw her laughing when Nikki finally came out and demanded that he come inside the bathroom and hold her so she could wash her hands- or play in the water while pretending to wash her hands. 

Then, when they finally emerged from the bathroom her somehow dry while she managed to get him standing behind her holding her up soaked, she had begged for apple juice and a candy bar. He had allowed the apple juice, but not the candy since they were going to have lunch soon. 

Lunch as it turned out, was in the town only a few miles out from the landing site in a diner after Clint had reported in and given his assessment of the situation- much to Nikki's delight since Agent Burgess, a security officer who dwarfed everybody else and was probably one of the sweetest people Clint had ever met had given her a blueberry muffin and some milk when she thought Clint hadn't been paying attention.  
She had giggled and tried to look innocent when Clint had turned around again, covered in crumbs with a milk mustache. He sighed and pretended to be completely fooled, sure now that she was learning far too much from Natasha, wondering if he was going to have a Master Spy on his hands before she turned five.

They go to the small town in the same small caravan with Phil and the other agents who are going to be confiscating Dr. Foster’s work. He’s fairly sure that Nicole is excited to be so far away from New York, god knows how she’s going to react to the stars, that you can’t see in the city, but will be a beautiful backdrop here, and glad that they have a telescope that they will be able to let her see though.  
He’s surprised to see the small group of scientists- well two scientists and a college student, there, with a large blond guy, who is talking in a weird antique way and devouring a stack of pancakes as though he has never eaten before in his life. The waitress coos over Nicole, who ignores her in favor of coloring one of the sheets of notebook paper Clint keeps just for that reason. Then she smiles warmly at him as Clint orders lemonade and coffee, her eyes running over him. The woman probably thinks he a beta, most people do when he’s on the pill, his build broader and more muscular than most omegas.  
Clint loves to point out the double standards in people’s reactions between an unmated (or unmarried) beta or alpha with a child and an unmated omega with one. 

That’s not for today though, today is for being low key and taking in the town and it’s inhabitants, looking for anybody that might give them trouble. It’s one of those things that happen enough that you end up planning for and nobody who doesn’t have to do your job believes is a thing that you have to deal with. For things like this it’s anti-government radicals who like to try and break into government (or SHIELD) operations just to try and muck things up.  
At the moment the only thing weird is blondie, who’s getting another stack of pancakes as their order comes up, who’s voice is carrying still and talks like he’s from another planet, he gotta make a note to find out where the hell Asgard is, since it sounds familiar.  
Nicole giving Clint her drawing as the waitress puts their food in front of them, it doesn’t looks like a rainbow vomited this time so much as as a toxic dump exploded, but he smiles and says it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen and saves it to go onto his fridge along with all of her other art. She squeals with delight when she sees her macaroni and cheese with tater tots and fruit though, picking up her spoon to dig in, when Blondie yells “ANOTHER!” and smashes his coffee mug against the floor.  
For a second the entire diner goes silent, staring at the small group, as Foster blushes and cleans up the mess, obviously mortified at it and horrified by his actions. From what he could see from when her lips are in his view, though Blondie is trying, and failing to appease her. Clint almost wants to hit him on the back of the head for Foster and her small group. He has to stop watching them because Nicole is eyeing her glass of lemonade now as she goes back to her meal, and he could almost see her wondering if she could do that to, until Clint warns her that trying means no ice cream. The look of horror on her face alone would appease him that she wouldn’t be trying that around him.

Later on, when it’s near bed time and she’s watching her cartoons with a plastic cup filled with juice, she’ll throw it onto the ground and shout another at him. Then cry as he makes her pick up the cup then puts her into the corner for two minutes. He puts the cartoon on pause though, so she won’t miss anything of her beloved small, singing animals of some sort (Clint isn’t sure what it’s called, it’s whatever she watches at the moment, her ‘favorites’ changing from hour to hour it seems) when the storm starts to appear, clouds coming out of nowhere and interfering with the signal until he has to turn it off and take her to bed.  
Her bed is a cot in one of the ‘buildings’ away from the main hub of activity while still well within the secure zone. It’s covered in pillows, making it probably softer than any cot has any right to be and covered with her favorite bright pink blanket with her dark red teddy bear waiting for her. It doesn’t take long for her to drift off, listening to the sounds of his voice as he reads her bed time story to her (A study in Scarlet- Nat likes Sherlock Holmes way too much) He waves to the camera in the small space, as he tucks her in listening to the sounds of thunder starting to grow in intensity, wondering what the fuck was going on. Then again at the guard that is looking over that section as he pulls up his collar against the wind and runs towards the command center to see what’s going on.  
He’s about half way there when they discover the intruder, men start moving fast looking for them and Clint runs out to get his bow as Coulson orders him to get up high with a gun. Which, honestly, Coulson should have known better than to order him to get a gun.

Later on, when the show’s over, and Blondie is in custody, the storm leaving as mysteriously as it came, Clint watches Nicole on the screen next to the one with the guy while drying off, and sees something weird when Coulson walks out. A weird flicker on the screen, that seems to move around and the man in custody who looks almost as though he’s reacting to it. he points it out to Coulson, this, the latest in a string of weird events. It makes him wonder if Nikki is really safe, if he needs to take her away from here, with it’s weird hammers, weirder blondes, and people who aren’t there.

The next day, when he’s standing guard over the main site and the hammer takes off, he’ll resolve to never listen to anybody who says that a field assignment will be ‘safe enough’ for his baby. He’ll make the same resolve even more vehemently when he sees the giant thing made of fire and metal and hears the reports. Nicole, at least, likes the show in the sky, declaring it pretty and once it’s all over trying to recreate it when she’s drawing. ( it looks weirdly like she tried to recreate what a tie die shirt looks like, if they had made a mistake in the dying process)

It’s still a better assignment than Nat’s, who thinks that Clint and Phil are nuts for believing in Stark, if for different reasons, and categories entirely. She likes Pepper though.


End file.
